A while back I did a ‘Ten Best’ piece on Blu-rays in Sound and Image. Best picture quality, best sound and so on. For Best BD-Live I put down Transformers on the basis of its downloadable ‘Intelligence Mode’. As it happens, I go into this disc’s BD-Live section a lot, primarily to check that BD-Live is working okay in whichever Blu-ray player I happen to be reviewing.
The other day I noticed that there seemed to be more content in BD-Live for this disc than previously, and today I’ve had a proper look. Here’s what’s available now (obviously, quite a bit prompted by the sequel). I’ve copied the descriptions from the download area.
- Intelligence mode: ‘An enhanced playback mode for the movie featuring on-screen widgets to track the action of the film. Widgets include: GPS Tracker, Robot Status Alerts and Data Panel’
- Exclusive Sneak Peek: ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen … We’re Gonna Die’
- Exclusive Sneak Peek: ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen … Shanghai’
- Exclusive Sneak Peek: ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen … Adobe Hut’
- From the Set: ‘Day 1: An exclusive look at the first day of shooting Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’
- From the Set: ‘A Day in the Shade: A comical look at the differences between Megan and Shia’s on-set treatment while making Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’
- Transformers Deleted Scene: ‘Maggie and Glen Introduction’
- Transformers Deleted Scene: ‘Fig Death’
- Fly on the Set: Pentagon: ‘On the set filming of the Pentagon Military Command Center’
- Music and Mayhem: ‘Renowned special effects house ILM deconstructs the blockbuster action of Transformers’
- Metal in Motion: ‘Special effects tests and early robot animation’
- Stunts 101: ‘An in depth look at the amazing stunts in Transformers’
- Choose Your Weapon: ‘A fly on the wall glimpse into the selection of weapons and how they were used by the film’s soldiers’
- The Man in the Ice: ‘From design to production, watch the Arctic come to life on various sets in Los Angeles, California’
- Voices: ‘The voices behind the Autobots and Decepticons’
- Audition Tapes: ‘Megan’s original Transformers audition’
- International Trailer: ‘Trailer C English’
- Robot Ninjas: ‘Using the stunt crew’s home videos, animatics and the final features, we break down one of the fight sequences from the film’
- Menubots: ‘Transform your in-movie menubar to one featuring a Transformer. Select from multiple looks …’
- Transformer Profiler: ‘… serves as an in-movie guide for learning more about the production including cast, crew, locations, etc. Once downloaded, access the Profiler by pressing the red button on the remote to turn on or off’
The addition of all this stuff does lend weight to the ‘Live’ part of BD-Live.
UPDATE (Thursday, 10 September 2009, Thursday, 10 September 2009): Unfortunately, the video (at least the one I checked), doesn’t download for retention on your persistent storage, but is streamed. That means that every time you watch it, it will cost you bandwidth. Pity. Things like the Intelligence mode and Menubots remain in your persistent storage so you can use them any time you like.