BD-Live bonus features hit the iPhone

Today, Universal announced that its upcoming Blu-ray title Fast & Furious will include bonus features that can only be accessed through an iPhone/iPod Touch app.

Of the hundreds of titles now available on Blu-ray, only a fraction are furnished with BD-Live bonus material -- that is, bonus material that exploits a player's Internet connectivity and onboard storage. Because the Blu-ray spec wasn't fully complete when Sony launched the format in 2004, it has had to incrementally roll out certain features. When Blu-ray profile 1.1 (or "bonus view") was rolled out, it was given picture-in-picture, and it wasn't until last year that Blu-ray profile 2.0 (or BD-Live) titles began coming out.

So with Fast & Furious, BD Live is being used to connect Wi-Fi Blu-ray players to a user's iPod Touch or iPhone to let them view content on the go, to access supplemental info on the film while watching, to control bonus features like the "Virtual Car Garage," where the touchscreen is used to control the 360-degree view of the movie's featured cars.

"Bridging these platforms further broadens the scope of the digital landscape by paving the way for innovative new applications and interactive content enhancements that continue to uniquely engage consumers," said Universal Studios' President of Home Entertainment and Digital Platforms, Craig Kornblau.
The title will be released on July 28 for $39.98, and the app will be available in the iTunes App Store.