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.
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.
