Neil Young will release an archive of performances on Blu-ray Disc, a compilation that was announced today by Reprise/Warner Bros. Records along with Sun Microsystems. The Neil Young Archive Series will be powered in large part by BD-J (Blu-ray Java) technology.
More than 15 years in the making, the Neil Young Archive will be a complete biography of the artist’s career in a timeline format, and it will include a chronology of released and unreleased songs. Using BD-Java technology, viewers will be able to navigate through Neil Young’s music, movies, videos, personal archives, memorabilia, photographs, letters and handwritten manuscripts while 192/24 audio plays in the background.
The Blu-ray Disc Neil Young Archives will deliver high-definition 1080p video in addition to the 192/24 audio, the latter of which will use the original analog master recordings.
The first Neil Young Archive release, a 10-Disc Blu-ray Disc box set, will ship this fall from Reprise/Warner Bros. Records. This first release will cover Neil Young’s career from 1963-1972.
“Previously, there was no way to browse archival material on a Disc and listen to a song in high resolution at the same time. The technology had not yet evolved to that capability,” Young in a prepared statement. “Here is something really new, we will be able to add content to already released Blu-ray Disc archive volumes by downloading it, whether it is music, film or vintage recording sessions, recently found photographs, or other archival materials that were located after the release of that volume. Users will be able to download any of these archival materials and they will automatically be assigned to their place in the Chronology timeline.”
Java technology, which is the underlying platform for the new BD-Live capabilities of the Blu-ray format, enables interactive components as well as the ability to update all aspects of a Blu-ray Disc via BD-Live Internet connectivity. For the Neil Young Archive discs, this could potentially include content updates such as music, film, adding new photos and providing tour information. It could also provide the ability to support dynamic fan community features such as message boards and/or concert reviews.