9:00AM Introduction

The Forum Director, Swiss-born Jean-Luc Renaud has been involved in the film, TV and new media industries for over 25 years. Jean-Luc graduated from the University of Geneva (MA) and Michigan State University (PhD). He then spent a year at the European Institute for the Media in Manchester where he co-authored The Future of the European Audiovisual Industry. He then joined Logica, the UK's largest independent IT company. There he worked on broadcast/media technology assignments and took an active part in Europe’s debate on advanced TV standard, digital television and video delivery networks. In 1991, he set up Globalcom Ltd, where he developed the company's publishing activities.

9:15AM Keynote Speech
Todd Collart, Deluxe Digital Studios

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Industry pioneer Todd Collart, Senior VP New Media at Deluxe Digital Studios, will give the keynote speech on consumer usage of BD-Live so far, what works what doesn’t, based on the large volume of aggregated data from several major studios at his disposal – 50 million BD disc inserts in 18 months from 9 million unique connected BD players!  

Todd is responsible for Deluxe's new technology initiatives, including network services (BD-Live, Digital Copy), digital (electronic) distribution, R&D, and intellectual property development. His team has shipped over 1000 Blu-ray skus, 200 of which are BD-Live enabled. Todd was President and CEO of InterActual, best known for inventing what is now called "connected DVD.” InterActual's technology was the predecessor for the advanced interactivity features included in Blu-ray.

9:45AM Chris Neely - Sonic Solutions

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Authoring solution provider Sonic Solutions will show some BD interactivity embedded into the Neil Young Archive Series created by MX Entertainment in San Francisco. Two of the exciting BD-J-enabled features in this title include the Neil Young career navigation timeline where the user clicks on the artist’s history to select audio, video, or images. It also features updatable audio, video, and image content via BD-Live where the player’s network connection allows updates to keep the title fresh and dynamic.

10:15AM Andreas Thran - Imagion/Dynamic HD

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German authoring and production house Imagion that pushed BD-Live technology and creative envelope in turning the release of Star Trek Season 1 boxset into a “mind-blowing” interactive event if we go by comments from Star Trek fans congregating at the FEDCON convention in Germany. The company will also demonstrate it ‘out-of-the-box’ BD-Live content management solution affordable to smaller, independent publishers.

11:15AM Lothar Kerestedjian - enteractive

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Hamburg-based enteractive will present the latest version of its BD-Live Video-on-Demand service 'Videociety' – a digital pay-per-view video delivery service that lets users rent movies via their Blu-ray player. In a nutshell, enteractive's ground-breaking Videociety technology transforms a Blu-ray player into a home entertainment centre with access to a video delivery service.

11:45AM Paulette Pantoja - BluFocus

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California-based BluFocus, the entertainment industry's first advanced testing and advisory service specialist for Blu-ray – and the company that oversaw Warner Bros’ biggest BD title to date The Dark Knight – will be showing solutions for BD-Live such as its BD Touch application. The company is also heavily involved in 3D BD. With its own test content and 3D camera setup, it focuses on the quality aspect, identifying what 'bad 3D' is, not from a technical standpoint, but from the physiological aspects and its impact on viewer's experience, with a view to optimise the 3D BD creative content.

12:15 PM Daniel Hromadko - Brickbox Digital Media

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Czech authoring and post-production house Brickbox Digital Media earned kudos with its restoration on Blu-ray of Dario Argento's acclaimed 1977 classic horror film Suspiria. The restoration techniques employed included frame-by-frame film and digital artifact restoration, scene-by-scene color correction and noise reduction. The company's latest BD work, The Interceptor, include advanced 3D modeling and animated flash techniques.

2:15PM Stewart Dickison - Sony DADC DigitalWorks

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Stewart Dickison of Sony DADC DigitalWorks will be talking about the in-movie metadata application "movieIQ" as an example of how BD is increasingly focusing on creativity and the consumer experience. With a movieIQ-enabled Blu-ray Disc and an internet-connected player, movie fans can immediately access continuously-updated information tied to scenes within the movie. Also touched on will be the challenges and functionality of wider BD features in the face of 3D BD.

2:45PM Stefan Bock - msm Studios

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Munich-based msm-Studios, a digital production house that specialises in high audio-quality music DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, will show the functionality it has extending to its Pure Audio Blu-ray service with copying software which enables users to copy the songs of a Pure Audio Blu-ray title from BD players directly on their computer via a network connection. Using mShuffle, theowner of a BD player can switch between the audio streams during playback. Though selection via the four color buttons of the BD player remote.

3:15PM Vincent Haeffner - dvdpartners 

Leading Paris-based authoring and post production facility dvdpartners will present work in HDMV and Java, starting with a BD title with video menu chapters and their own audio when rolled over – a first in Blu-ray publishing. Also shown will be a children’s game developed for Arte France, to create one's own short film version of Peter and the Wolf on a JAVA- powered editing console, out of 30 video extracts from the classic masterpiece.

3:45PM Dieter Schwengler - Sofatronic 

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Authoring solutions supplier and developer of the Kaleidoscope platform, Sofatronic will focus on social community apps for BD-Live. By connecting any Blu-ray to the facebook community and twitter users, the viewer's experience is enhanced and a number of marketing tools is added for content owners and distributors. Futhermore, the company will present its iPhone/iPod touch/iPad app and its possibilities to expand the viewing experience of a Blu-ray to mobile devices.

4:45 PM Andy Evans - The Pavement

The Pavement, London's leading high-end authoring and digital production facility, will show the first UK BD-Live title for U2 ahead of its global release in June. Users can access continually updated footage and material from the band's worldwide tour.  The Pavement is creating, managing and supporting the U2 BD Live content. The studio also launched the first DVD/Blu-ray bit budget iPhone app.

5:15 PM - 3DBD Session 
Adam Lesh - Testronic Labs

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Speaker Adam Lesh is US CTO of Testronic Labs, the global leader in quality assurance and testing services to the Home Entertainment Industry which has just opened a 3D test lab located in Burbank, California. Having tested all the current 3D titles and demo discs, this presentation will discuss the history of 3D, the evolution of content creation in BD leading up to 3D, and then describe the necessary considerations in ensuring optimal consumer experience on this emerging format.