Profile 1.1 Officially Renamed "Bonus View"

Hoping to ease consumer confusion over the release of Profile 1.1 Blu-ray hardware and software, the Blu-ray Disc Association has given the tech-sounding term a more newbie-friendly moniker.

The announcement was made by BDA Promotions Committee Chairman Andy Parsons earlier this week at the Blu-ray Festival in Los Angeles. Effective immediately, the hardware upgrade previously known as "Profile 1.1" and "Final Standard Profile" has been rechristened "Bonus View."

The name change came on the eve of the BDA-mandated October 31 deadline that requires all newly-launched Blu-ray players to include a series of next-gen features the will enable more advanced interactive features such as dual stream picture-in-picture playback and live audio mixing.

As we've previously reported, Fox announced earlier this week that its January 8th Blu-ray release of 'Sunshine' would be its first title to utilize the new technology. That was followed by news that Panasonic will begin shipping the first fully compliant stand-alone Blu-ray player next week.

At presstime there was no word yet on exactly how (or if) the new "Bonus View" branding would be implemented on the packaging of disc titles and hardware, but as always we'll keep you posted.