With the rising popularity of online services like Netflix, it’s clear that while movie lovers are willing to buy their favourite films on disc to keep, using the internet to watch a movie they’re merely curious about has a great deal of appeal. Universal has decided they need to get in on this, and since most Blu-ray players can also connect to the internet, they’ve decided to launch their own Netflix-like service as a Blu-ray bonus feature, starting with a free sample included in Get Him To The Greek.

Sound confusing? Well, it is and it doesn’t help that Universal has decided to market it simply as a two movies for the price of one deal. Buy Get Him To The Greek on Blu-ray and you can watch a second movie online for free. That’s the gist.

So here’s how it breaks down:

Get Him To The Greek (The Movie You Paid For)

It’s on the disc. You own it. It’s in 1080p resolution. Includes all the commentaries, documentaries, music videos, and interactive features.

Uncle Buck, Life, or Dazed and Confused (Free Movie Included)

You can choose one of the above titles to watch – once. It’s not on the disc. You don’t own it. There’s no special features, and it’s in 720p resolution. You need to have a Blu-ray player that is connected to the internet to use the feature and once you press play on your chosen movie, you have 24 hours to finish watching it before it disappears forever. If you’re feeling really geeky, you can use the free Pocket Blu app available for iPhone to connect to your player through Wi-Fi and have the free movie play on the smaller screen instead. Streaming Movie Rentals ($2.99 per title)

Assuming you get your free movie to work and like the experience, you can pull out your credit card and pay to watch moremovies in the same way. At $2.99 each, you can watch Knocked Up, Role Models, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Same deal as the free movie, you don’t own it, get to watch it once, and have 24 hours to do so from the moment you press play.

Is It Worth The Hassle?

The short answer is no. While it’s easy to work out that the free movie offer is included in the BD-Live section of the disc, it’s mixed in with the other online features including trailers, clips, and community forums that makes it hard to figure out what is which. I managed to unlock my bonus movie, but couldn’t work out how to actually make it play until I realized that it’s not the “play” icons over the movie posters, but the selection menu at the very top of the screen that is the key.

The movie takes a few moments to load and the image quality fluctuates throughout playback, sometimes breaking up. You can pause and even rewind, but that seems to only add to the playback problems. I tried to use the Pocket Blu app on my iPhone to watch it as a mobile movie, but couldn’t get the feature to work.

While Universal’s attempt at a streaming service is no match to Netflix in terms of technology, price, selection, and simplicity, it is good to see a studio get directly involved in this space and would be worthwhile if they could make it better. Blu-ray hasn’t turned out to be as popular as DVD was and for those who’ve made an investment at home in the technology it’s nice to see the studios working to keep Blu-ray players useful as the market moves forward, and more importantly deliver rewards in the form of freebies as they do so.