BluFocus Launches: Entertainment Industry's First Advanced Testing And Advisory Service Specialist For Blu-ray Movie Titles

Expanded capabilities of Blu-ray titles means studios, player manufacturers, authoring facilities and tool developers must ensure issue-free customer experience [The following is a release from BluFocus]

January 7, 2008

The days when a studio could master a DVD and rapidly get it to market with minimal testing are fading fast. The latest Blu-ray movie titles are essentially a sophisticated blend of advanced interactive software and high-definition video and audio. As such, they require advanced testing methodologies to ensure they deliver functionality as intended in all the latest Blu-ray players. To ensure that studios can be certain that the latest box-office hit will operate issue-free in any Blu-ray player, a new company has launched. Founded by industry experts with years of expertise in DVD/Blu-ray engineering and production, BluFocus aims to address the emerging need for advanced methodologies for Blu-ray title testing and quality assurance. "Existing standard DVD testing approaches do not address the complexities of the advanced Blu-ray platform; we are filling this gap by offering state-of-the-art Blu-ray title testing experience to all stakeholders in the production process," said Paulette E. Pantoja, founder and CEO of newly formed BluFocus Inc. "We address the needs of all of the Blu-ray constituents: studios, authoring facilities, players manufacturers, and the emerging developers of Blu-ray disc tools." BluFocus is particularly familiar with the qualification of Blu-ray disc Java (BD-J). BD-J is the interactive platform supporting advanced bonus content for Blu-ray Disc. It allows content on Blu-ray Disc titles to be far more sophisticated than content provided by standard DVD, and offers the potential for interactive features, network access, picture-in-picture and access to local storage. "We believe that the testing methodologies currently in place—while appropriate for DVD titles—are not sufficient for Blu-ray discs. No one in the business wants to see a title released to the market with problems, but this will be an increasingly common event unless the quality assurance process is scoped out to include the advanced features of the Blu-ray format," said Pantoja. BluFocus is already working with several movie studios to qualify certain titles, complementary service providers, and a leading BD Live technology developer in order to offer authorized testing for network connected BD-J features.

Read More: