Now that the Blu-ray/HD-DVD format war is all but history, a new version of the winning format is starting to roll out - Blu-Ray Profile 2.0. With this new version, advanced interactive features bring a new perspective to the capabilities of DVD players.

Aldo Cugnini
Analyst

Also known as "BD-Live," Profile 2.0 adds various features to the original Profile 1.0, and the later "Final Standard Profile" 1.1. Blu-ray 2.0 now requires 1 GB of local storage and Internet connectivity, as well as the secondary video and audio decoders that were already required in 1.1. Discs produced under Profile 2.0 will continue to work in earlier players, but the advanced features will not work, of course.

With local storage and an Ethernet port, 2.0-compliant players can now download additional content, including trailers, extended scenes, and merchandise. Possibilities under consideration include movie-related ring tones, multiplayer games, and real time chat rooms. All of this functionality will be accessed through enhanced Internet-enabled discs. The addition of a second decoder makes possible picture-in-picture, a feature called BonusView. It was perhaps a business move to update the standard in the latter half of last year, so that the format could compete more technically with HD-DVD, which already supported multiple decoders.

Lionsgate, Fox and Disney have already announced several discs with BD-Live and/or BonusView features. Sony and Panasonic have already shown prototypes of Profile 2.0 players at CES in January, but the Sony PlayStation 3 is the only current device that can be upgraded to 2.0 with just a software download. However, as Internet connectivity exists as an option under Profile 1.1, some existing players have the capability of upgrading their own functionality to that of 2.0, provided that the memory can be upgraded as well.

An additional feature of the disk format - present since Profile 1.0 - is Blu-ray Disc Java, or BD-J, a software platform that underlies the interactive functionality of the players. Based on a DVB specification called "Globally Executable MHP" (GEM), BD-J is closely related to the OCAP and ACAP platforms now being deployed for digital cable and terrestrial DTV, respectively. This means that applications written for one of the media can be easily ported to the other. From a business standpoint, this can result in the speedy and cost-effective development of highly interactive content across many different platforms.

Of course, this level of functionality in a DVD player could essentially render it equivalent to a PC - but that’s already been happening. And TVs are now being produced with Internet connectivity, as well as built-in DVD players. Do you sense a kind of product morphing going on here? Remember the For-Chev-Van-Chrys-Vagen, trying to be all things to all people? The problem, of course, is that, in order to do all of these things well, the cost of such units will be very high, especially considering the mainstream viewer only wants to watch movies. Certainly, some people will want this level of functionally, but they’ll be very irritated if the disc mechanism - perhaps the most failure-prone component - is not easy to replace.

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