I came across this disc while going through my storage this weekend. Some of you will remember this disc. Those who have no clue, here is a little story about it.



In late 2006, Sony rushed the Blu-ray disc format incomplete to the market to compete with Toshiba’s HD-DVD format which launched a couple of months earlier. There were major revisions to the format in the next 2 years. One of these revisions was BD-Live which brought online interactive features to the format. When a BD-Live embedded Blu-ray disc title played on a BD-Live capable Blu-ray player, it could access additional online content and extras which aren’t present on the disc.

All Blu-ray disc player sold up to this point became obsolete because they lacked the software and hardware needed for BD-Live with one exception. Within a year after its release Playstation 3 (PS3) was already the best selling Blu-ray player. It already had online interactive functions for gaming and its operating system (OS) could be updated. Sony released a major operating system update which made PS3 the first BD-Live capable Blu-ray disc player.

Netflix first started as a DVD by mail service, later offered streaming movies on a web browser on computers. They had no competitors but streaming on a computer limited their reach. There were no Apple or Android TVs yet. They saw BD-Live as an opportunity which enabled a very clever work around to have their online streaming catalog available to PS3 owners without any revisions needed to the PS3 OS. They started mailing this disc free of charge to their subscribers who owned a PS3. You would put this disc in your PS3 to launch it like an ordinary Blu-ray disc, utilizing the disc’s BD-Live functions, you would then access all of Netflix‘s streaming content. PS3 had very powerful hardware for its time. This Netflix disc on PS3 worked superbly until they released the first native app integrated into the PS3 OS shortly after.

If my memory serves me well, Samsung BD-2550 was the first Blu-ray disc player with built in native Netflix streaming app. It was released shortly after this Netflix disc along side with the BD-2500. They were identical except the BD-2550 was a Best Buy exclusive and had the Netflix app built in. I was working for Best Buy at the time as a Home Theater consultant/designer. I remember the sales weren’t great. Best Buy gave up on its interest in Netflix and launched VUDU on a dedicated hardware shortly after. The initial VUDU box was similar in how it worked to Kaleidescape Strato with built in storage. Maybe I will write about the initial VUDU box on a different thread later.

I think you’re reading way too much into the importance of BD Live…way too much. Saying a Blu-ray player without BD Live is obsolete is like saying an LD player without LD+G was obsolete.

This same disc exists for Wii. It’s just a way of getting an app on the machine.

It's more like BD Live is obsolete.

Most of the online extras disappeared long time ago!

Julien

And good timing to bring back old stories!

=> Netflix's 25-year-old delivery service for DVDs (in red envelopes) will go dark on September 29th.



Julien

You can say that today. If you were following the market at the time, Sony advertised BD Live as a really big deal. Not many people owned HDTVs, they knew the improved clarity wasn't enough to convince people to upgrade from the already established DVD (and VHS). HD-DVD had 'Advance Content' as their BD Live equivalent from day one. We were supposed to get new interactive content made available to use via BD Live or Advance Content even many years after the purchase of the discs. In a way the barebones initial disc releases turn into a special editions without double dipping on other purchases. What failed both BD Live and Advance Content was the lack of studio support. But hey, if you wanted Netflix on your TV without hooking up your computer, you needed a Profile 2.0 (BD Live) Blu-ray disc player.

I was still using Netflix's DVD by mail up until a year ago. It took longer and longer to receive discs in mail although I am only 15 miles from one of their processing facilities. More than half my queue had titles with "very long wait", some I waited months. I figured they stopped stocking discs and getting ready to drop the service. They made the end of service announcement a few months after I canceled my subscription.

Now I am very close to canceling their streaming subscription. I don't care for it but my parents love it. I have had their 5 users plan for a long time. There were a few decent Netflix exclusives that I watched but mainly my family uses the account. They made a recent policy change which allows users only within the same household. Well, I don't live with my parents. When I first signed up, Netflix encouraged sharing the account with family and friends to justify higher tier subscriptions. Not only they increased the pricing significantly, now they say each person should get a dedicated subscription.

Just because a company tried to make it a big deal doesn't mean it was a big deal. I've never met a single person in real life who gave a second thought to BD Live, and you're the first person I've encountered online who has. Suffice to say, I think it's a stretch to call old players "obsolete" on account of optional online features. They still played the discs.

I think I actually used BD Live once or twice and I had a PS3 all through its “glory days”. Whatever I tried wasn’t memorable.

Meanwhile I have a stand-alone Sony player that has never been updated once and still plays everything.

Until today, the only time I've ever seen anyone talked about BD Live was during the HD DVD/Blu-ray format war. Those on the HD DVD side seemed to actually believe that Blu-ray was "worse" because the average player at the time didn't have it.

The point of this thread is not BD Live but how Netflix used it as a work around to get its streaming service on the PS3 for the first time. I didn’t care about BD Live either but I couldn’t explain how this disc worked without explaining BD-Live in its historical context.

If you didn’t buy your Blu-ray somewhere between late 2006 and early 2008, you aren’t an early adopter and you wouldn’t know of the struggles on the early players. There were many firmware updates. If you didn’t update your player, it would lock up and not play the newer discs. They were also painfully slow. It would take a good minute before the player powered on and the tray opened then you could go make pop corn and come back before the player reached to the film menu. I am not exaggerating. After around 2008, they sorted out most of the bugs and started putting faster hardware in the players.