Next Gen Movie Watching: Chat Meets DVDs

New Blu-ray feature allows viewers to chat on screen; other innovations on way
By Amelia Atlas,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 8, 2008 2:21 PM CST
Next Gen Movie Watching: Chat Meets DVDs
Guillermo Del Toro's "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" is among the first to use BD Live technology, offering a live conversation via Blu-ray.    (Getty Images)

As technology takes movie-watching ever further from the days of clunky film reels, the Wall Street Journal rounds up some developments to look for:

  • A new Blu-ray feature—called BD Live—combines movies with social networking, letting people viewing the same movie chat on screen.
  • Technology in the works will wirelessly transfer movies among portable gadgets, for watching anywhere, on any device.

  • Kiosks will burn DVDs or SD cards on demand from a data base of thousands of films, making older films available as stores cut titles.
  • Cloud computing will be used to allow individuals to store their movie libraries online and tap them from any computer, anywhere.
  •  At movie theaters, cutting-edge digital projection—4K—improves image quality even beyond current-generation offerings, and even up close.
  • One sound system in development uses dozens of speakers around the theater to make voices of characters on screen seem to come from right next to each audience member.
(More DVD stories.)

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