Dec 14 2008
Blu-Ray Question
Alright, I finally opened my wallet and forked out a nice stack of cash for a Panasonic Plasma HDTV and Panasonic Blu-Ray player (along with a few movies), but I have a question about the BD-Live feature that many discs are coming with.
I presume all BD-Live content is stored on remote servers and is downloaded much like one would download a demo via Xbox Live. So what happens when those servers go down?
This is one of my concerns with PC gaming authentification procedures. If the authentification server(s) goes down in X number of years after the game is released, how do you get to play the game?
The same is true with these BD-Live options. If I buy a Blu-Ray movie with BD-Live features and the servers containing the content go down, how will I get that bonus content that I am paying for? It seems to me that there’s not going to be any way for me to get my bonus features once those servers go down.
Is all BD-Live content hosted by Sony or is that up to the individual publishers to host? If it’s all hosted by Sony, then I have some level of assurance that the company won’t go out of business anytime soon and lose its servers, but if it’s up to smaller publishers, then I have concerns. This is why I like all of my bonus features to come on the discs themselves. I really don’t like the idea of relying on some sort of special downloading service for this. Some BD-Live features don’t sound too special to be honest, but in the case of the first season of Dexter, well, almost every one of the features is on BD-Live and that really pisses me off.
Jim,
From my understanding BD-Live content is provided by the individual movie studios. And the BD-Live content, once downloaded, can be kept for as long as the user wants–that would be generally via a memory card, though not all players have a memory card slot, instead relying completely on the available built-in space, which would, obviously, limit as to how much content you could keep.
I did research into this, because I, like you, was vastly confused. Apparently the content providers as well aren’t mandated to keep said BD-Live content material around for years, so at some point it’ll probably–as you fear–not be available. Which, I agree with you, sucks! Anyway.
I’ve been investigating getting a Blu-Ray player for about a year now. I’m not quite yet to commit to the investment myself yet. I’m hanging on a bit more before I fork out the cash. I’m thinking on a Panasonic model like you bought, mainly because that’s what my TV is, and I’ve always had decent luck with their stuff. You’ll have to let me know how you like it.
Damn, it is as I feared. Bastards. I would prefer for them to keep the bonus features on the discs instead. We’re already paying for the extras (they’re not true extras nowadays; they’re part of the price models now).
I’ve got the Panasonic DMP-BD35K. I got it from Amazon when they had a good deal on it. If you get this model, there’s a rebate online somewhere which will get your two free Bluray movies. I haven’t sent mine in yet.
I like it so far, but I need to buy an SD card for it since it doesn’t (if I remember correctly) include internal memory for the BD-Live crap.
Cool, glad you like it. I just did a check on Panasonic’s website and, you’re correct, it does not have internal storage for BD-Live content–memory card only. That’s what it looks like anyhow. If I do go with Panasonic, I might get the 55K as it has audio ports for doing the new-fangled audio formats–ports for older receivers like mine that don’t have HDMI that is.