Warner Bros. lines up BD-Live films for winter release

Considering that Disney just made headlines with its decision to go BD-Live on a few notable releases, it's no real surprise to see Warner Bros. following suit. At the Entertainment Supply Chain Academy conference, the studio's president of Technical Operations Darcy Antonellis asserted that it was "looking to launch web-enabled Blu-ray titles with BD-Live as early as the winter holidays." He elaborated by specifically mentioning "real-time viewing, library tools, a search engine, a recommendation tool with e-mail reminders, ringtones and wallpapers." Unfortunately, nary a clue was given as to what titles would be sporting what features, but it can't go and just reveal everything ahead of time, right?

[DaveBG Posted Jun 24th 2008 10:05AM]

Bring em on! :)

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2008 10:57AM]

I'm guessing that these are 2 of the titles:

'JFK: Ultimate Collector's Edition'

'300: Limited Collector's Edition'

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2008 11:09AM]

Thank god for BD-Live! How have we managed to get this far without the chance to buy ringtones?

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2008 11:13AM]

reading all of these bd-live features makes me more interested in just getting one of the top of the line 1.1 players that are coming out this summer. 2.0 Seems pretty lame to me and the only thing I would be interested in is having the ethernet port for firmware updates(if they are released)

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2008 11:38AM]

I still don't see any killer apps for BD-Live. Let's break down Warner's statements and see how much the stated features will benefit the consumer (versus themselves):

real-time viewing - If this is like the other "simultaneous viewing" solutions, it'll encourage friends & family to buy multiple copies of a movie, whereas previously they might have loaned a copy of the movie to each other.

library tools - I have no idea what this is for

a search engine - for you to find Warner films to buy?

a recommendation tool with e-mail reminders - for you to be spammed about other Warner films to buy

ringtones - for you to buy

wallpapers - for you to buy

The most disturbing statement of all to me was this:

[Darcy Antonellis, president of Warner Bros. Technical Operations] said studios will be dialed into consumer habits based in large part on the information they submit during the registration process included with each Blu-ray title.

In other words, we will apparently have to register for each and every title where we want to use the BD-Live features, which means Warner will have ultimate targeted marketing information about all the Warner films you've bought, when you've played them, who you viewed them with, and what online features you've accessed.

It all sounds a little too "big brother" to my taste, with questionable benefits provided in exchange for my personal data.

[simbadogg Posted Jun 25th 2008 6:14AM]

you honestly hit every one of the aforementioned features on the head. i have a ps3, so i have a 2.0 profile player by default...but jesus, if i'm gonna buy my parents a player this holiday season 1.1 all the way

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2008 12:10PM]

Darcy is a 'she'...not a 'he'

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2008 12:51PM]

It's about time the Blu-ray feature set caught up to what HD DVD has had for the last two years. This will hopefully make my eventual Blu-ray purchase less of a step down. Now if only they'd lower prices and remove the ridiculous copy protection and region coding.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2008 2:09PM]

Caught up? BD-Live exceeds anything in HD DVD and its still meh. A totally optional feature.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2008 4:58PM]

I still don't see why I should care.

I love blu ray, I love HD, but I buy blu ray for HD video and audio, not for stupid crap. Not to mention the fact that the BD-live crap is usually not in HD. Imagine that, an HD disc that has a bunch of SD features. Eff that.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 25th 2008 12:36PM]

1.1 FTW or 2.0 for firmware updates ONLY.