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BD Live - anyone else wish this would go away?

post #1 of 33
3/31/11 at 9:59am
Thread Starter 

Who else wishes the studios would just abandon this "feature" and go back to putting extras on the discs? I have bought a number of BRs that advertise BDLive only to discover that the content is "no longer available" on every single one of them. If you aren't going to keep the content available, it doesn't exist, so just put it on the discs so I can view it at my leisure.

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post #2 of 33
3/31/11 at 10:23am

Yikes!  I know we've all imagined that that could happen over time, but what are some examples of content actually being taken off line?

 

To answer the question:  YES.  I haven't yet, and don't ever plan to, use BD Live.  My player will only ever go the Internet for firmware updates.

 

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post #3 of 33
3/31/11 at 10:27am

What titles have had discontinued features? And what were the features?

 

 

How many titles have BD-Live content beyond filmographies or other useless junk?

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post #4 of 33
3/31/11 at 10:39am

I was never excited at the offerings of BD-Live to begin with and now learning that the content could expire over time (and so soon) makes it even less attractive. I agree with eliminating it altogether and providing extras in the traditional format.

 

 

 

 

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post #5 of 33
3/31/11 at 10:56am
Thread Starter 

Starship Troopers is one off the top of my head, but I know there are several more that I have tried with no success. I have no idea what the content was as I never got to see it.

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post #6 of 33
3/31/11 at 12:41pm

I've never seen the point of BD-Live (aside from a new Divx-like attempt to introduce pay-per-view) and I have no interest in (or any idea how to) connect my player to the internet. I don't see why all extras aren't included on the discs.

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post #7 of 33
3/31/11 at 12:58pm

BD-Live is the marketing department's idea for extra advertisment revenue. Nothing more, nothing less.


 

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post #8 of 33
3/31/11 at 5:43pm

I've never used it todate. Seems more of a waste of my time more than anything else. Of course, I don't watch any extras, at all. 

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post #9 of 33
3/31/11 at 6:31pm

The only benefit I have seen from it, is in the way of disc registration  

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post #10 of 33
3/31/11 at 7:07pm

I haven't played with BD-Live much, but I did come across the fan-made trivia from the Star Trek II BD. It was fun, I created a trivia section myself using my PC. It's a cute little endeavor, but like a lot of people I haven't invested much into BD-Live.

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post #11 of 33
3/31/11 at 10:14pm

Worst abuse of BD-Live yet that I've seen is the Fantasia set from Disney.  ALL the great documentaries from the DVD set are ONLY available via BD-Live in a small window.  This is just a complete travesty as far as I'm concerned.  I want material to keep, not to wonder how long it will last.  Just crap.

 

I wish to hell BD-Live didn't exist.

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post #12 of 33
3/31/11 at 11:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TravisR View Post

What titles have had discontinued features? And what were the features?

 

 

How many titles have BD-Live content beyond filmographies or other useless junk?



The Star Trek TOS season sets have quite a bit of BD Live content, and they update it now and then with footage from conventions and I think they update the "Red Shirt Diaries" now and then also. A lot of it is simply stuff that wasn't ready in time to make it onto the disc, or happened after the disc was released.

 

Of course I don't know of any other BD live content that is that active, but the Star Trek sets seem to show the best way to use the feature.

 

Doug

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post #13 of 33
4/1/11 at 1:55am

Definately as it stops many discs from playing properly even when your constantly connected to the Internet due to Java issues. They should have made it optional not mandatory I can see many films not playing properly in future because of this!

 

We all know its really another layer of DRM anyway to ensure only valid discs function properly.........

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post #14 of 33
4/1/11 at 6:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Douglas Monce View Post


The Star Trek TOS season sets have quite a bit of BD Live content, and they update it now and then with footage from conventions and I think they update the "Red Shirt Diaries" now and then also. A lot of it is simply stuff that wasn't ready in time to make it onto the disc, or happened after the disc was released.

 

Of course I don't know of any other BD live content that is that active, but the Star Trek sets seem to show the best way to use the feature.

 

Doug



So Star Trek and Fantasia are two examples of real content and I'm assuming that the content is still available. I think all content should be on the disc and I couldn't care less if BD-Live was never used on another disc but it's not like this is a widespread problem.

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post #15 of 33
4/1/11 at 2:28pm

I never bothered with any BD-Live stuff.  First, I never -- NEVER -- hook my player to the internet.  I download firmware updates when necessary, and it hasn't been necessary for a long time.  Second, I have no interest in "interacting" with my movies or television series. I turn on the TV and watch. Third, I figure that if it's not important enough to put on the disk, it probably isn't very good and I've got better uses for my time than to watch schlock. As for commentaries, after hearing several and finding only one (on Remington Steele) that didn't bore me silly with free-associating BS, I no longer bother with commentaries. I let the film speak for itself. It speaks much better, and is certainly more interesting. Still, other folks like them, so I'd keep them around. As for BD-Live, it should go the way of 8-track tapes and CED Disks as something that looked good on paper but never really worked.

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post #16 of 33
4/1/11 at 3:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick Thompson View Post

I never bothered with any BD-Live stuff.  First, I never -- NEVER -- hook my player to the internet.  I download firmware updates when necessary, and it hasn't been necessary for a long time.  Second, I have no interest in "interacting" with my movies or television series. I turn on the TV and watch. Third, I figure that if it's not important enough to put on the disk, it probably isn't very good and I've got better uses for my time than to watch schlock. As for commentaries, after hearing several and finding only one (on Remington Steele) that didn't bore me silly with free-associating BS, I no longer bother with commentaries. I let the film speak for itself. It speaks much better, and is certainly more interesting. Still, other folks like them, so I'd keep them around. As for BD-Live, it should go the way of 8-track tapes and CED Disks as something that looked good on paper but never really worked.

 

If I want to look at junk online, I don't have to hook into my bluray player; I can simply log on to my computer. I think it all came about because bluray producers feared that consumers wouldn't be interested in their films unless they were "interactive." What ... utter ... nonsense.

 

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post #17 of 33
4/2/11 at 3:31am

So does anybody like BD-live?  It's amazing that the studios' desire for it is so much at odds with what people want (or don't want).

 


Edited by RobertR - 4/2/11 at 11:16am
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post #18 of 33
4/2/11 at 4:29am

The dumbest thing I ever saw was that feature where you could create a chat room available on screen while you're watching the movie...and therefore could chat with your friends about the movie while you're watching it. I thought are you effing kidding me? What kind of nutbag would want to do that??

 

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post #19 of 33
4/2/11 at 6:24am

I've been thinking that whatever audience or target demographic there is for BD Live, for the most part it isn't going to be made up of the folks reading and posting here.  Maybe kids by the freakin' millions are happily "interacting" with their TV and their movies.  And how we would know this? 

 

Are the studios and manufacturers monitoring the level of BD Live activity, and responding accordingly?  Or is it, right now anyway, just being thrown out there in the hope that it will catch on?  My fervent hope, of course, would be that it's a big fat flop, but that no one's ready to admit it.

 

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post #20 of 33
4/2/11 at 10:15am


 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ethan Riley View Post

The dumbest thing I ever saw was that feature where you could create a chat room available on screen while you're watching the movie...and therefore could chat with your friends about the movie while you're watching it. I thought are you effing kidding me? What kind of nutbag would want to do that??

 

 

Agreed.  And wouldn't it be 100 times more efficient to either just simply call them or text them if you did want to do that?

 

It's the old "solution in search of a problem". 
 

 

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post #21 of 33
4/2/11 at 10:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Deeb View Post


 

 

Agreed.  And wouldn't it be 100 times more efficient to either just simply call them or text them if you did want to do that?

 

It's the old "solution in search of a problem". 
 

 



Or, here's a nutty idea...why not watch a movie with a friend in the same room? rolleyes.gif

 

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post #22 of 33
4/2/11 at 10:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brisby View Post



Or, here's a nutty idea...why not watch a movie with a friend in the same room? rolleyes.gif

 



Yeah but technology allows people to be connected to other people without the annoyance of actually having to be near them or listen to them when you don't want to. Oh wait, that's actually being disconnected from other people.

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post #23 of 33
4/2/11 at 1:32pm

The Terminator 2 Skynet Edition Blu-ray used BD-Live to store all of the documentaries and featurettes originally included with the DVD releases. I haven't seen the disc in over a year so I don't know if that is still available.

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post #24 of 33
4/2/11 at 5:56pm

HD-DVD used this too, but all the Universal discs I've tried with online extras don't have them online anymore.

 

BD-Live is much too slow and cumbersome- every time I try to use it, it takes several minutes just to connect, then the interface is ridiculously awkward. I thought the 'record your own commentary' thing would be interesting, but it looks like Warner's already taken that offline. One disc I checked had a link to listen to other people's commentaries, but it just led to an empty box, and there was a message elsewhere saying the feature had been discontinued. (Don't know how it would've worked anyways as I can't plug a microphone into my BD player.)

 

Only decent use for it I've seen is to show current trailers instead of ones on the disc that get outdated later, but those should be accessible without even having to load a disc. I had one crash while playing anyways.

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post #25 of 33
4/2/11 at 6:32pm

 The one thing I like about the internet capabilities is what I've seen with Universal's Blu-Rays. Every time you put your movie in, it randomly picks trailers to show you. Usually when I buy a movie, I'll watch the trailers at the beginning, but afterwords, will skip them. With Uni's Blu-Rays, it's always something different. I was confused at first, when I put my movie in a second time and a different set/order of trailers was playing. However, once I realized what it was doing, I thought it was really cool. I hope more studios do this!


 

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post #26 of 33
4/2/11 at 6:32pm

one of the other issues i have with this, and so far it is only Universal titles, i have a first gen in the cave, and those seem to be the only ones that wont play, all the updates are on it, but it just cycles through the damn menu,  

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post #27 of 33
4/2/11 at 6:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Deeb View Post


 

 

Agreed.  And wouldn't it be 100 times more efficient to either just simply call them or text them if you did want to do that?

 

It's the old "solution in search of a problem". 
 

 




In this case, it's more like a "solution that causes problems".

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post #28 of 33
4/2/11 at 10:23pm
Thread Starter 

I could see a feature that allowed you to download extras to a storage card (another dumb thing with Starship Troopers, it won't even load without a memory card but there's nothing to indicate that). I have yet to find any of my collection where the BDLive actually works, though after the first few attempts I can really say I'm all too bothered now. Just put the extras on the discs like you did with DVD.

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post #29 of 33
4/2/11 at 10:54pm

 

 

Agreed.  And wouldn't it be 100 times more efficient to either just simply call them or text them if you did want to do that?

 

It's the old "solution in search of a problem". 
 

 


But this "solution" has the newest cool factor!

 

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post #30 of 33
4/3/11 at 4:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by EdReedFan20 View Post

 The one thing I like about the internet capabilities is what I've seen with Universal's Blu-Rays. Every time you put your movie in, it randomly picks trailers to show you. Usually when I buy a movie, I'll watch the trailers at the beginning, but afterwords, will skip them. With Uni's Blu-Rays, it's always something different. I was confused at first, when I put my movie in a second time and a different set/order of trailers was playing. However, once I realized what it was doing, I thought it was really cool. I hope more studios do this!


 

I'd rather they kill the previews altogether, or at least put them on the opening menu so I have the option of skipping them.  They fall into two categories: (1) pictures I already know about and will see/buy, (2) pictures I already know about and will NEVER see/buy. Either way, they're a waste of my time and only turn me against their product. 

 

The previews now start before the menus and the ways to get past them are being killed off. Pressing "menu" used to do it, but not any more. Pressing "next chapter" used to do it, but not any more. All that's left is fast-forward, which I expect to be killed off next.

 

And that doesn't even mention those menus seemingly created by a refugee from the meth lab!  You think they're trying to drive us away from their product? Sure looks (literally) that way.
 

 

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