It's like a meme! "You will do this quiz and you will LIKE IT!"

You can sue them for this due to malware. And if you pay by the meg for you bandwidth, you can recoup those costs too.

@Jinx: This is hardly malware. The BD-Live content is clearly advertised. But it is poor user interface design. During download, the disc should tell you what's happening and give you an option to cancel. But really, this probably would have been a complete non-issue if Paramount had the server capacity to handle the kind of traffic that comes with a major title launch.

@Khuluna
"It's like a meme! "You will do this quiz and you will LIKE IT!"

You want your internet meme, here ya go:

Don't quiz me bro!

:p

I hope you are all happy that Sony won!!!

Our PS3 asked something about connecting and downloading content. I said, "No". What the hell, I want to watch the freaking movie.

Seems like some of the consumerist folks here don't know how the internet interactivity on Blu-Ray/HD-DVDs work and think it's something that the "man" put there to put you "down".

I never had any problems like this with HD-DVDs, ho ho. Good job Sony.

I don't have to worry about that -- I use a mac, and Apple doesn't even offer a Blu-Ray player.

And here I am stuck watching my "crappy" standard definition DVD version of Iron Man that doesn't try to download crap before letting me watch the movie.

Sure wish I had upgraded.

/sarcasm

I don't see what the big deal is, obviously people aren't using a PS3 (the best recommended Blu Ray player) to watch Iron Man. I am an hour into it and I had it download the stuff at the beginning, and it only took 2 minutes...and I agree with Darklighter, Blu Ray Live is apparent on any BD with the feature, especially this one. Not many BD's have this feature yet, but i'm all for it b/c it is innovation. Lets see your upscaled DVD access the internets...

Reminds me of that short period of time that DVDs came out and they forced you to sit through the previews before you could get to the menu screen to watch the movie. Always hated that. You'd hit the 'menu' button and the player would say that operation isn't permitted.

Wonder if anyone with Blue-Ray on their PC has noticed any rootkits or trojans or crapware appearing after one of these downloads.

And no, this isn't innovation. In the late 90's several of my son's DVDs had interactive games (lame ones, yes)and the ability to open special websites if you were on a computer. I don't see the innovation in letting you play a game that's got to download off of the internet.

@ezacharyk: I've lived happily behind the curve. Find I spend less money and have fewer frustrations that way.

Sounded like bad disks to me. Check out this link on Blu-Ray.com: [www.blu-ray.com] --I'm guessing they didn't get all the bad ones.

I had a similar problem and found myself staring at ARC reactor logo for 10 minutes. Nothing. It just froze. I restarted and I popped in Disk 2 and it worked. I took it back to the store and exchanged it. This time it loaded right away and didn't hassle me or otherwise prevent the Blu-ray DVD from working. To access the Bl-ray Live content, you have to drill down into the menu to turn it on. Exchange it.

They could also be using the interactive quiz feature to hide installation of some copy protection, too. I don't let any disks autoplay on my PC any more.

@undefined: When the Arc Reactor Heart popped up when I put in my copy, I figured it was an obtuse loading screen. After a full minute passed, I thought it may be an obtuse error message. Eject, reinsert, and it works. It may not be something put there by 'the man' as you say, but it was implemented in a pretty retarded fashion. Also, there's no documentation of it in the box. I have to return my copy of Iron Man anyway, it's one of the defective first batch that was recalled and shouldn't have ended up on the shelves to begin with. I miss the simplicity of VHS.

I wish HD-DVD was still alive.

Obviously Sony does not know what people want from their Blu-rays.

I say that the best crapware is crapware that downloads ONCE. That's the way my Dad did it. That's the way Hollywood does it.

I think it's very unfair that if you fail the quiz it won't let you play the movie.













Well, okay, I made that up.

That is horrible. I'm more than convinced that HD-DVD looks better than Blu-Ray. Oh why did HD-DVD have to die.

I'll bring it up again because I'm obsessed, bandwidth caps. If my provider has a cap and this takes me over it...

Another reason the big boys should be trying to prevent caps from being put in place by internet providers.

@Jinx: Are you intentionally trying to pass bad advice or are you just high?

@twophrasebark: *snerf*

I fail to see how this is the fault of the Blu-ray author. It's just a case of people that don't RTFM before they setup their devices.

My PS3 asked if I would like to download the extra content. It didn't "just do it". Not to mention like a previous poster, my PS3 took all of 2 minutes to download it. It's not the disc manufacturers fault if your player isn't hooked up to the internet or you have a slow connection.

@Keen314: I certainly don't. VHS is sooooo last century. :)

@undefined: hopefully, there won't be draconian caps, otherwise IT companies like Google or Microsoft (or Apple) will suffer. We wouldn't want that, would we?!

@shiftless: Cuz Toshiba was an idiot to let it go. Think about the PR they coulda done to make the thing fly.

@quail: Which is why I often rip irksome DVDs and put the copy in the same box and play the copy - with the irritating PUOs (Prohibited User Operations) removed. Particularly kids' films which have long warnings about copyright theft and the like. A five year old really has no interest in a shouty message about piracy, they just want to watch the film about pirates.

They probably tested it in their office with the zillion-speed connection and can't see the problem with long download times because "It doesn't happen here".

this can be avoided by HAVING A PROGRESS BAR AND EXPLAINING WHAT IS BEING DONE. Almost everyone assumed the system had locked up when it was downloading.

Also make sure your servers can deal with a lot of people trying to watch the movie for the first time all at the same time. Most people who had this problem seemed to be trying to watch it in the evening on Tuesday which tells me the server was just overloaded.

@undefined: Ha. Our PS3 just showed his flashing "heart" on the screen and no amount of button jamming did anything. We left it and an hour later, the DVD menu came up and the movie played fine after that.

If you look it up online it says that Iron Man Blu-Ray discs put into Sony Blu-Ray players have "issues"...

@agnamus: Ugh and this is why our country is going down the tubes. Sue sue sue! Sue them all! If a former Vice Presidential candidate can get rich off of needless lawsuits why shouldn't everyone!

It doesn't take that long, Their BD(BS)-Live Servers were just overloaded on the first day. I did it on Wednesday and it took less than 2 minutes and it asked me if I wanted to download it to my Playstation 3.

@harlock_JDS: Yeah. I had assumed my system had locked up or I had a defective Iron Man. I decided I'd turn off BD-Live as a last ditch option to see if it would load. And "gasp" it did! This was of course after checking my other disc too. The BD-Live crap is terrible. Its what I would expect from Paramount or Universal release - bugs - because they were HD-DVD exclusive.

Nice to know that a disc with such massive storage capacity can't make room for a tiny, text-only quiz, which is so bloatedly programmed that it takes almost an hour to download.

This is why people pirate movies, Paramount.

@quail: will VLC play BD on PCs, yet? That's been my solution for unskippable previews.

@Skipweasel: quite likely. A throbber (heart thing) for a few seconds is not a problem, after all.

@incognit000:

it doesn't take an hour to download if the servers aren't bonked, that was the issue on Tuesday (along with some possible internet issues on the customer end)

i'd guess the trivia is downloaded not because of a lack of storage space but because they want to add questions in the future.

And if you read the BD live, they will collect info on you. What kind of player you are using, your IP, Day, Time, and more, "non identifying info."
If I didn't think this movie was awesome I wouldn't bother. But alas, it is awesome and I want to watch it.

@undefined: @Khuluna: that isn't what a meme is, don't use terminology if you don't understand it's meaning.

"Let's put MORE crap that most people don't like on our disk. And even better, let's set it to download without any warning - people LOVE that!"

"And they get to PAY for it too!"

HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHHAAAA!!!!!!!!

(evil laughter)

I bet it's some sort of DRM package.

@Jesse:

I doubt it. DRM is pretty much built into blu-ray players already. Any more would be redundant.

Wow ... inviation @ its worst ...

Eat up my bandwidth ( unrequested )
Lock up my computer
Focus on crapware instead of the fact that I bought the movie to WATCH the movie ...

Someone tell me again why I want to run right out and piss away 400 dollars on a Blu-ray player ?

And as a previous poster said, Standard DVD's have already had these lame " features " since the 90's.

I rented "Baby Mama" on Blu-ray and it too wanted to connect to the Internet. After I finished watching I combed the extras menu for "Download the Funny." No luck.

Uh, did any of the replies here actually buy and try it? All the HD-DVD fanboys still left, you clearly don't know your history. Or Paramount's. A former champion of HD DVD, Alan Bell (Paramount's CTO) clearly had designs for HD DVD, which he tried to transfer to Blu-ray.

He noted that HD DVD specifications mandated that all HD DVD players had to come with a built-in Internet connection. Why? It allowed producers of movie HD DVDs to supply consumers with trailers, cuts and games. He also noted that interactivity best mirrors the lifestyle of today's growing YouTube, MySpace and Facebook fan base.

Here:

[www.videobusiness.com]

[findarticles.com]

[www.pcadvisor.co.uk]

@ferris209: I agree completely. THIS crap is what the industry choose.?.?.?.? GTFO!

@cerbie: I don't think so. And I'm pretty sure that VLC's DVD function isn't legal.

I haven't looked at it closely enough. Anyone can inform us of this?