Porter,
I have been "cold crashing" the last few brews without any problems. I use a chest freezer with an external thermostat to control temperature. AFTER the fermentation is complete, (2-3 weeks) I turn down the temperature to 35-40 degrees. The theory is this will cause more stuff to fall out, including yeast. I warm the beer up to room temp before I bottle. I add the conditioning sugars as I normally would. So far all is good.
I was originally apprehensive that I might drop out all of the yeast but that has not been a problem.
Bottle condition as far as I am concerned in bottle carbonation with the addition of sugars (corn sugar) at bottling. Presumably, all of the maltose sugars are already consumed and the only sugars available is the stuff I just added.
There is a conditioning step in the original fermentation. During the primary (and secondary) fermentation, the yeast do produce some off by-products. I let the beer sit at least a week past any sign of fermentation activity. During this conditioning stage the yeast start to "eat" up their own by-products.
If you filter the beer before bottling, you will remove all of the yeast and bottle carbonation will not be possible, unless you introduce new yeast (same or different strain) to consume the sugars added at bottling.
I'm not sure what is meant by live or real ale. I presume that is ale with the original yeast still intact for bottle carbonation. The cold crash will slow the yeast down but not harm it. The yeast will reactivate when the temperature is increased back into the yeast's target range.
Hope this helps, David