I recall Warner announcing that they were going to "catch up with their releases" in reference to the titles they have put out on HD-DVD that havent come over to BD. This is important to me, as I am not so patiently waiting for Batman Begins from what was supposed to be a "neutral studio" Is MS/Tosh paying these ppl off too?

I wouldn't fret too much. If you look at the coming schedules for both Warner and Paramount, there isn't much announced for either format right now. The discs will come.

As far as Warner "catching up", well, they will. They are about 20 discs behind, and I don't think it's reasonable for anyone to expect that they're just going to dump 20 "extra" discs on the BD market in the first quarter of this year. They've said they'd be caught up around the 1 year mark, and I expect they'll be 75% of the way there by June or so.

3 words - BD-J not finished.

There's so many titles coming out that I'm not gonna miss these. So they might as well do it right. With that said, BD-J has taken too long already to be implemented in players and I wish there was some word on what the status is right now.

Blu ray has got to get their act together regarding regarding the BD-J. At this rate, it might be a year, who knows?

Blu ray has got to get their act together regarding regarding the BD-J. At this rate, it might be a year, who knows?

Actually, all players coming out in June or later HAS to have it, but I'd much rahter have it sooner than later.

Just to chime in, both The Descent and Crank use BD-Java for their picture-in-picture commentaries. Oddly enough, not many websites have reviewed these discs. In fact, I haven't seen one review up for The Descent. They're both great discs, with loads of cool HD features. Just watched Crank today (with all features) and it was a beautiful disc.

So the question stands: Why hasn't Warner brought their In-Movie Experience titles over yet, and why is Lionsgate the only company that seems to be using this BD-J capability?

Just to chime in, both The Descent and Crank use BD-Java for their picture-in-picture commentaries. Oddly enough, not many websites have reviewed these discs. In fact, I haven't seen one review up for The Descent. They're both great discs, with loads of cool HD features. Just watched Crank today (with all features) and it was a beautiful disc.

So the question stands: Why hasn't Warner brought their In-Movie Experience titles over yet, and why is Lionsgate the only company that seems to be using this BD-J capability?

The Descent - 99 minutes BD50 disc
Crank - 87 minutes - BD50 disc

I dont think a full second encode of a movie is quite the advanced interactivity we were expecting. Hopefully we wont have to have to many movies with advanced features like these or we may never get a 2 hour movie :(

To TomsHT's point, see the quote below from the review at highdefdigest. This is not true BD-J. My guess is Warner titles containing IME will start to trickle in around June. Meanwhile, how about Caddyshack Warner!

"While the HD DVD format's HDi authoring environment benefits from mandatory support in the format's spec, meaning all current players can do live mixing of two separate video streams in-player, the Blu-ray format cannot (though it is coming, according to current reports). So Lionsgate has instead opted to encode a completely separate version of the 87-minute movie on the disc. It is presented well, in 1080p/MPEG-2 video, with the picture-in-picture overlays and other text-based information hard-matted right onto the image. This may not be the cutting-edge of PIP technology, but it certainly works."

Just prior to the release of the disc, the DvdTimes UK website (they also cover region 1 releases) mentioned BD-Java in its news article on the Descent:

"With groundbreaking Blu-ray features such as THE GATE: The Descent Underground Experience, special features presented in high-definition, along with 6.1 PCM audio (uncompressed), Blu-ray java interactive menus, The Descent dual-layer (BD) 50GB sets the bar for maximizing the capabilities of the Blu-ray format. With Blu-ray, it is also possible to view both the high-definition original unrated cut of the film as well as the theatrical version that was released in the United States. "

If this double transfer business is true, then thats kind of ridiculous. I still maintain that Lionsgate has done a great job with these two discs, and would love to see other studios do these double encodes, at least until Java gets up and running.

3 words - BD-J not finished.

BD-J is not a word, it is three letters which are each a word in their own right, making that five words. :-)

/carmi