Called "BD Touch," NetBlender's new technology enhances the capabilities of BD Live by enabling two-way communication between a Blu-ray player and Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch.
NetBlender today announced a new Blu-ray Disc technology that allows iPhones and iPod Touch devices to interact with content on a Blu-ray disc. Called "BD Touch", the technology leverages the network connection built into Blu-ray players and the WiFi connection on the iPhone to create two-way communication between the devices. Video, audio, text, and player commands can be transferred via the connection.
"Having spent the past decade building interactive video products we are thrilled to bring together two of the most interactive consumer products ever created with BD Touch," said John Harrington, NetBlender CEO. "We began R&D on integrating the two devices right after I experienced the iPhone Multi-Touch interface for the first time."
BD Touch connects the 10 foot experience of the large screen home theater with the mobile experience offered by the iPhone. BD Touch applications can take advantage of the iPhone's geo location features, 3D sensors and QWERTY keyboard. BD Touch features will work on any BD Live-enabled Blu-ray Disc player such as the PlayStation 3.
Search and e-commerce possibilities related to movie content abound when two-way communication between the iPhone and the content being displayed on a Blu-ray player is enabled. Other implementations of BD Touch will include:
- Pushing digital copies of movies to an iPhone from the Blu-ray disc menu.
- Automatically cataloguing a viewer's Blu-ray disc collection and providing movie suggestions
- Displaying trivia and extra information about a movie in sync with the movie's playback
- Turning existing Blu-ray discs into games that use the iPhone as the game controller
"We are pleased that NetBlender's DoStudio, which incorporates Corel's PureHD Multiplexing technology, is continuing to expand the creative possibilities for next generation media professionals," said Jeff Hastings, President and GM Corel Digital Media.
"By releasing the BD Touch SDK to the iPhone developer community we're excited to see creative possibilities for Blu-ray interactivity flourish," said Denny Breitenfeld, NetBlender CTO. "The BD Touch framework is built into our Blu-ray disc authoring solution, DoStudio, so Blu-ray authorers at every level of the industry will be able to take advantage of these exciting new applications on their discs with point and click ease."
The BD Touch SDK provides a complete specification for sending and receiving data between a BD Touch compatible Blu-Ray disc and an iPhone/iPod Touch. Using the SDK, developers can create free or commercial applications on a Mac just like they do now for iPhone applications. The SDK is open to the public and BD Touch applications can be distributed in the same manner as other iPhone applications according to Apple Corp.'s EULA.
Information about BD Touch and the BD Touch SDK can be found at http://www.netblender.com.