Wait the release sold beyond it's expectations right? So that must mean Blu ray is going to be gone in 5 years right?

"Iron Man's BD-Live features insisted on downloading an interactive quiz from the internet before the movie would start"

Well there you have it, kids. You can't just put in your paid-for movie and play the damn thing. You have to bend to the will of the studios and go to the internet to get the quiz which wasn't the main reason you paid the $40 in the first place. This just makes me sick.

"After heavily publicising Iron Man's use of BD-Live"

First I heard of it. What was their advertising budget? $50?

"The disc represents a truly state-of-the art Blu-ray presentation"

Looks to me like you pissed off a lot of people, Paramount. Are they impressed? Not so much.

WTF lmao i work for a major electronics retailer and some people ( we taught them after of the problem) came in to exchange the Blue ray movie version of Iron man.. This is retared ...Overwhelmed? WTF you are Paramount been around for decades have billions in the tank !!! stupidity not overwhelmed !!!

Many things are coming out that will challenge the status quo..

Pandora portable gaming console will crush all the crap out there Push for this project

"due to the overwhelming popularity of the release an unprecedented demand was placed on the BD-Live connection"

I wonder how their servers would handle the load if Blu-Ray was as popular as DVD. You'd probably have to wait for weeks or months until it works. What a great feature.

This was probably easily avoided.  They made the download content mandatory for anyone who has a bd live compatible player.  So when everyone played their brand new disc it got the error.  The probably don't even need a server upgrade.  All they had to do was make the special feature a voluntary download, which would prevent everyone (and probably most everyone) from even downloading it.

This just shows how much control the studios have AFTER THE SALE with your Bluray purchases. If this isn't a wakeup call for the people buying into this format-I don't know what is. Just wait until this is the ONLY format and we can only imagine what other "features" will be leveraged into play and determined "mandatory" prior to playback. Let's hope there will be "workarounds" for these as well. ROFLMAO at anyone that buys into this DRM laden format.

I thought you guys blu-ray/sony haters love to complain about the importance of Profile 2.0. You guys go on and on about how "ready" HD DVD with internet connection and Blu-ray still messing with Profile 1.0, 1.1 etc etc.

I told you.... this things will happen. Who cares about Profile 2.0, we just want to watch the damn movie. I'm happy with Profile 1.1 player now.

For the record, HDi isn't exactly flawless in this regard, either.  All the interactive nonsense should be *OPTIONAL* instead of forced down our throats.  The PS3 gives us the option of asking if we want to download the content on BD Live.  PowerDVD, not so much.  They had to add a screen (which, btw, has to be downloaded!!) to ask if you want to download the content.  Will all discs do this?  Who knows.  I for one am looking for a way to disable the "feature" in PowerDVD so it doesn't even bother to ask...it just simply doesn't.    I'm not looking to use a firewall to block PowerDVD from accessing the internet, although that is an option.  I just want it to pretend that BD Live never existed unless I want it to.  Consumer choice...that's what I'm looking for.

well here we go the first of many nasty things to come. LOL

money creates power, which then becomes greed, which then creates CONTROL.

 nuff said

Mistakes always occur with new technology. I'm sure that this incident will be a lesson to Paramount and all other studios. Requiring downloadable content before allowing playback is a flawed and stupid structure.

Yeah and it's not the blu ray's disc fault it is the manufactures who didn't have the correct amount of servers to handle the load.

"Yeah and it's not the blu ray's disc fault it is the manufactures who didn't have the correct amount of servers to handle the load."

They probably didn't need the server power.  They just needed to make it an option in the menu.  It's a good bet, given the choice, a very low percentage would bother to download the contect.  Only the fact that it was required to start the disc, over loaded the servers.   It's just a badly laid out disc.

That's correct.  However, I'm not banking on the fact that anyone learned anything from this experience.  HDi has been around for quite a while and the Blu camp didn't seem to learn from the mistakes made with that.  (MOST of them give you the option to cancel, but, not all).  I truly feel it should be an option in all players as to whether to download the content or not.  The PS3 is great in that regard.

Yup it was a bad idea by the publisher to not allow this option to be turned off before you played the disc but again it's not the disc's fault but the publishers and this only became a problem because the movie sold really well. 

How do you "cripple" a lame idea anyways? Blu-ray is much to do about nothing. What a joke.

D'oh! Dual post. Ok here is another thought...why should I "need" an Internet connection to "enjoy" a feature? Please discuss among yourselves..

GABF RULEZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can hardly wait for the Blu-ray release of "Schindler's List" so we can get all of the wacky slipups and outtakes from the movie online.

Or maybe they'll just put them on the disk, since they'll have so much room for all the "extras".

Well if people would of just bought NMT's instead of the overweight paper weights...I mean BluRay Dsic players they wouldn't of had this problem in the first place.

@bluballs: NMT is not a blu-ray player. You can't watch blu-ray disc and can't play menus, extra features, PIP and BD-Live.

LOL, here is an idea, rip the movie to your HDD and then watch it. Better yet, put it on a DVD9 and watch it in your player that way.

I like how these companies force you to watch something. I wouldn't be surprised if they started to make you watch commercials before even watching a Bluray flick sort of like what the theaters do.

@blue

All NMT's are BluRay players just not BluRay Disc players. I don't care about menus or PIP or profiles.  I just wanna watch  full1080p ES video and full HD audio which all NMT's do.  Just watched Eraser BluRay last night so don't tell me my NMT is NOT a BluRay player cause I can't stick a disc in it.  The future is NOT optical.

@blubals: which NMT you recommend?

@ BluBalls

You're right, it isn't optical. 1.5 TB drives just came out. Now is the time !!! I'm thinking either Popcorn Hour or HDX 1000. The HDX 1000 is bigger, but it's aluminum (doesn't get as hot) and has a power button.

Well Gee wasn't the whole point of BluRay to have room for all the extra content on the disc without downloading it?  Did anyone think of "automatic firmware updates" everytime you play this disc?  There is no other reason to automatically download content unless you are pushing firmware out.  It would require a long term investment for one product.  No studio will do that. No one knows what they are pushing down to your players. 

@zevia

I have a PCH A-100 but I have had mine since they first came out. If you need HD audio bitstreaming get the PCH A-110 if you don;t need HD audio and already have an AVR that decodes AC3/DTS get an A-100.  You can do HD Audio with the A-100's via (L)PCM (DTS-MA/TrueHD -> 5.1 PCM) via software.

Of course it's not optical. I mean lets just all stick our entire movie collection onto 1 hard drive and watch it crash then lose it all cry because all your movies are now gone. What to do? Redownload them all? Yeah tell your ISP that with there bandwidth caps. If optical is dead then that means you don't have a backup to just copy it from so I guess you just sit in a corner sucking on your knees

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

@ jk

Awesome alliteration. Good job.