Friday, April 11, 2008

Blu-Ray support for iPod & iPhone



NetBlender has created a Software Development Kit (SDK) called "BD Touch" which aims at enhancing the capabilities of BD Live by enabling the Apple iPod and iPhone to have a two-way communication. BD Touch uses the BD Live network connection built into Blu-ray players and the Wi-Fi connection on the iPhone to connect the devices.

BD Touch applications can use geolocation, the iPhone's motion sensors and keyboard input. The video, audio, text and player commands can be transferred to the BD player and the handheld devices could act as a remote for it. They can also be used to store movies and surf the Internet for content related to the movie that is playing.

Other applications of BD Touch include automatic cataloging of a Blu-ray Disc collection, updating and managing a movie rentals, turning existing Blu-ray Discs into games that use the iPhone as a controller, and viewing fan-created content in sync with the disc.

The SDK can work with all Blu-Ray Disc players that are compatible with BD Live (currently only PS3) like models from Philips, Samsung, Sony and others.

NetBlender has created two BD Touch SDK programs for developers to create free or commercial iPhone applications with BD Touch features. These are aimed to provide a complete specification for sending and receiving data between a BD Touch enabled Blu-Ray disc and an iPhone/iPod Touch.

Blu-ray Disc authorers can add BD Touch features to their discs with point-and-click ease using DoStudio - BD Authoring Edition. It has the BD Touch framework in-built and BD Touch applications can be imported as plugins and applied to discs in an intuitive, script-free environment.

Reportedly, the company says that search, e-commerce, and advertising possibilities related to movie content abound when one imagines real-time communication between the iPhone and the content currently being displayed on a Blu-ray player.

Click here to watch a movie that describes how exactly the iPhone can work with a BD Player.

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