Dexter Seasons 1-6 BD-LIVE feature can damage the Blu-ray formats reputation

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Dexter Seasons 1-6 is an excellent example on how the BD-LIVE feature can damage the Blu-ray formats reputation

I am not against the BD-LIVE feature when it’s reliable and offers some nice features. Some Blu-ray titles from some studios offer additional audio commentary tracks as a streaming or downloaded feature over BD-LIVE 6 months or so after the Blu-ray physical disc is released (That is a good example of BD-LIVE). There are some studios like 20th Century Fox that uses BD-LIVE in a positive way by offering several HD movie trailers and several HD bonus features that can be downloaded to a 2TB e-SATA hard drive that is connected to an OPPO BDP-93 Blu-ray player.

I am not a Dexter fan but one of my family members likes Dexter and they own seasons 1-6 on Blu-ray since it is one of their favorite series. This thread is about how Showtime Entertainment/Paramount Home Video has used the BD-LIVE feature in a very negative way to upset some consumers that own Blu-ray players. It should be mentioned that Dexter seasons 1-6 contains almost no bonus feature on the physical Blu-ray discs except for rare examples like season one which has an audio commentary track. So the BD-LIVE feature becomes an extremely important feature for seasons 1-6 for those consumers that want to watch exclusive bonus features.

Dexter season 4, season 5, and season 6 will load directly to the BD-LIVE main menu instead of the Blu-ray discs main menu when the Blu-ray disc is inserted in a Blu-ray player. So every time a consumer inserts Blu-ray disc number 1, number 2, or number 3 for season 4, season 5, and season 6 they are forced to see the BD-LIVE main menu instead of the Blu-ray discs main menu. To play any of the episodes for season 4, season 5, and season 6 of Dexter the consumer needs to push the buttons on the remote control and select the Main Menu option so the Blu-ray discs main menu will load. To make matters worse some older Blu-ray players have loading problems with Dexter season 4, season 5, and season 6 and it can take several minutes for the BD-LIVE screen to load and then another several minutes for the consumer to exit to the Main Menu to watch a Dexter episode (A very high-end fast computer with a BD-ROM drive can load the Dexter discs in a few seconds).

The Dexter season 4, season 5, and season 6 BD-LIVE feature has also caused problems with Blu-ray players not even being able to load these 3 seasons at all when BD-LIVE network access is turned on. OPPO Digital INC on August 14th 2012 came out with a firmware update for the OPPO BDP-93/95 that allowed consumers for the first time to load Dexter season 4, season 5, and season 6 when BD-LIVE network access is turned on. I can understand why the average consumer still collects DVD discs since they do not have to deal with all kinds of loading problems that the 6 year old Blu-ray format still has for some Blu-ray titles.

99.9% of the consumers do not want their Blu-ray player automatically going to the BD-LIVE main menu screen when they insert any Dexter season 4, season 5, and season 6 Blu-ray disc. Consumers want to watch the episodes first. They do not want to have to exit out of the BD-LIVE menu to get to the Dexter Blu-ray discs main menu every time discs number 1, number 2, and number 3 is inserted. In the past BD-LIVE portal to the Internet was an optional feature that consumers manually clicked on after they finished watching the episodes.

If Showtime Entertainment/Paramount Home Video wanted to use the BD-LIVE feature on Dexter season 4, season 5, and season 6 then they should have only offered a manual option for consumers to launch the BD-LIVE feature instead of Showtime Entertainment/Paramount Home Video forcing the BD-LIVE main menu screen to load when any Blu-ray disc for seasons 4-6 is inserted into a Blu-ray player.

Dexter season 4, season 5, and season 6 contains exclusive BD-LIVE content that consumers can stream over the Internet. The BD-LIVE Showtime features include behind the scenes 480i MPEG-4/AVC Dexter interviews with the cast along with many hours from other Showtime programs that are shown at 480i using MPEG-4/AVC. Showtime offers a few complete preview episodes of some of their other Network TV series in hopes that consumers will become interested in other Showtime programs.

Dexter season 1, season 2, and season 3 Blu-ray discs BD-LIVE interface is much better but there is no working BD-LIVE content to currently watch

Showtime Entertainment/Paramount Home Video correctly designed the interfaces for seasons 1-3 of Dexter. For seasons 1-3 of Dexter each Blu-ray discs loads to the Blu-ray discs main menu when the Blu-ray discs are inserted in the Blu-ray player (That’s how every Blu-ray disc should work). BD-LIVE for seasons 1-3 requires the consumer to manually select the BD-LIVE feature from a option on the Blu-ray discs main menu to launch the Internet based BD-LIVE feature. For example season 2 uses a unique looking download interface that allows consumers to download higher quality 480i bonus material to their Blu-ray players internal or external storage location (higher quality compared to low bit rate 480i streaming). Season 1 and 3 of Dexter share the exact same BD-LIVE download interface but the interface is different when compared to season 2.

The problem is the BD-LIVE 480i Dexter interviews and 480i Showtime preview episodes are disabled for seasons 1-3 of Dexter. For Dexter season 2 on Blu-ray there is an Episodes and Trailers section that will access BD-LIVE. The problem is all the bonus features for season 2 on Blu-ray can no longer be played over BD-LIVE since Showtime has pulled the server that was handling the BD-LIVE downloads for Dexter season 2. Then for the Dexter season 1 and season 3 download interface Showtime Entertainment/Paramount Home Video has never offered any bonus features for seasons 1 and 3 and most likely will never do so. Its been over 3 years since Showtime Entertainment/Paramount Home Video released season 1 and 3 of Dexter on Blu-ray and they have never offered any BD-LIVE features at all for those two seasons even though the Blu-ray discs contain the BD-LIVE download interface:

The following is a quote from season 1 review of Dexter

“standard bonuses are a couple of commentaries ported over from the DVDs.”

“The rest of the bonus features are only accessible online via a BD-Live capable Blu-ray player. This content was supposed to be available on January 6, 2009, but as of this writing Paramount still hasn’t put anything up yet. I can’t give any ratings for what isn’t there, but I can tell you whats supposed to be here eventually.”

The following is a quote from season 3 review of Dexter

“The Complete Third Season' sinks to a new low. All that's here is a BD-Live portal which technically is supposed to include novel excerpts, cast interviews, and bonus episodes from other Showtime series, however there wasn't anything there the last time I checked. This really could have (and should have) been handled much better. Very disappointing indeed.”

In summary

So even though Dexter seasons 1-3 use a much better BD-LIVE download interface that requires the consumer to manually launch the BD-LIVE feature, it is totally useless since for over 3 years there has not been any downloadable BD-LIVE content for seasons 1 and 3. Plus season 2 downloadable bonus features were pulled from the server which makes season 2 BD-LIVE features totally useless also.

Seasons 4-6 of Dexter do contain active streaming content currently. However when it comes to Dexter seasons 4-6 those 3 seasons use a streaming BD-LIVE interface that launches the BD-LIVE main menu automatically every time a Blu-ray disc is inserted. People want to go to the main Blu-ray disc menu when a Blu-ray disc is inserted and they do not want the online BD-LIVE internet connection to automatically load the BD-LIVE menu every time a Blu-ray disc is inserted.

The solution to this problem is to do the following for Season 7 of Dexter on Blu-ray

Seasons 1-3 used the best interface for BD-LIVE but since BD-LIVE is not being supported at all for those seasons then the same thing could happen in the future for seasons 4-6. Consumers are getting tired of the BD-LIVE feature from Showtime Entertainment/Paramount Home Video and BD-LIVE has turned into a big negative of the Blu-ray format because of loading problems and studios not supporting the BD-LIVE feature properly.

The BD-LIVE feature should not even be used at all for season 7 of Dexter. For season 7 of Dexter Showtime Entertainment/Paramount Home Video should raise the list price of Dexter season 7 by $5.00 in order to pay for a 4th bonus disc. Then Dexter Season 7 should include a 4th bonus disc on either Blu-ray or DVD that contains all the extra features. If the bonus features are only going to be 480i quality then a dual layer 8.5GB DVD might be all that is needed. If the bonus features are going to contain more than 8.5GB’s of 480i data then a 25GB or 50GB Blu-ray disc should be used. The ideal bonus features should be on a 50GB Blu-ray disc in true HD quality.