Hey,

I was just wondering what the main difference between HD-DVD and Bluray menus are... There haven't really been any screenshots or anything regarding Bluray menus, I have an HD-DVD player but was just curious about how the menu's on Blu look compared to hddvd... Anyone have any?

Yeah, I would like to know this as well..

And how many discs starts directly with movie playback.. I just HATE having to see all the spoilers regular DVD menus always throws in your face.

tough question. Each disk is different

some are superimposed, others are not
some use fancy boxes others just text

and then there is the more esoteric
for example
The League of Extraordinary gentelemen: has a first person shooter, you play one of the characters in the library scene and you need to "shoot" the bad guys.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse: You can pick play back options so that there is dynamic branching (for example one of them would be “Game babes”, if you pick it then when the female characters appear on screen for the first time it cuts out of the movie and shows that featurette and then continues with the movie – same with some deleted scenes)

As for the rest, they are menus, play, scenes, options, features… the normal stuff

No screen shots people????

Actually, if you go to any store and look at the back of Fox Blu-rays, you'll see the menu screen. Every Fox title has it on the back cover. It's different from movie to movie.

HD DVD has advanced interactive menus during playback, that Blu-Ray lacks.

Check here this page about HDi:

http://www.thisishddvd.com/hdi.aspx

tough question. Each disk is different
some are superimposed, others are not
some use fancy boxes others just text
and then there is the more esoteric
for example
The League of Extraordinary gentelemen: has a first person shooter, you play one of the characters in the library scene and you need to "shoot" the bad guys.

Speed also has a BD-Java game, where you try to detect hidden bombs among the scenery as the film plays....pretty lame, but it'll probably get better as the authoring tools get better and easier to handle.

Disney's PoTC will come with some interesting BD-J interactives as well...

http://www.blueboard.com/bluray/movie_listing_bdj.htm

Looking at the things listed there: Blu-ray also has "interactive menus" that pop-up in the movie. Bookmarks, time meters, and zoom are all useless. Especially when Blu-ray discs can actually be *resumed* without having to use silly bookmarks. And I don't know why anyone would want a network connection. The only thing missing is the PiP which is supposed to come later this year with BD-J.

Bookmarks would be nice, I guess, but I'd probably never use them. Like the PiP on my TV that I never use. Zoom as a mandatory feature deserving of it's own button on the remote? Silly.

Do HD DVD time meters differ from the time meter progress bar on the PS3 in any meaningful way?

I didn't expect an HD format to have standard DVD menus. Another reason why HD-DVD is better than blu-ray.

Maybe I'll like blu-ray better when they have a firmware update to add an ethernet port so they can add BD-Live. ;)

Bookmark is one of my favorite features. Book mark your reference scenes in a movie and next time you put it in you can watch just those. Finding what you want in the "select scences" can be a pain.

PIP can be very cool too. With U control you can pick which PIP feature to display and you can have more than one window open.

I would like to see the menus as well. Anyone have any pics?

Thx

Blu-ray menus are fast and instantaneous.

HD-DVD menus look better.

I have both formats and I think that the HD DVD in-movie menus are better because they are very thorough and are available in every single movie. Whether they are the Universal U-Control films, or the Warner, Paramount, or Weinstein films, the menus are great throughout.

If we are just talking about the Menu's and not the features that are provided (ie HD-DVD options like U-Control, bookmarks, PIP, auto updates over Ethernet, compared to a BD-Java implementation of special features on BDs)


....then to me the menus are pretty similar between the two formats. I think it really comes down to the studio and how well they put the menus together, not unlike DVDs.

Bookmarks, time meters, and zoom are all useless.


Maybe they are useless for you. But I use them all the time.


And I don't know why anyone would want a network connection.


Are you joking? The possibility to update HD DVDs is a very important feature. No more problems and bugs that cannot be fixed like in the DVDs, and you have a disc that can be upgraded to new specifications of the HD DVD format if they occour.

Downloading additional subtitles, menus, infos and extra contents is a cool feature too.


The only thing missing is the PiP which is supposed to come later this year with BD-J.

Isn't the secondary video decoder optional in the Blu-Ray hardware specifications? The 1st generation stand-alone players cannot do it, even with a firmware upgrade.
Instead almost every HD DVD has pip extra content, and you can see things like the same scene with and without the special effects for example. Or the scene and the original storyboard and artworks playing side to side, with the art director commenting it. In this regard HD DVD is a truly next-gen format.