"From Andy Parsons, U.S. Promotion Committee Chair, Blu-ray Disc Association:

Based on recent coverage, there appears to be some confusion about the implementation of BD-Java on Blu-ray Disc.

All Blu-ray Disc players must support BD-Java (BD-J) and every one shipped to date does. The confusion surrounds an announcement by the setting an Oct. 31 deadline for implementation of several secondary features. The deadline applies to:

– Secondary video, also known as picture-in-picture (PiP).
– Secondary audio.
– Persistent memory storage (a minimum of 256MB, 1GB for players with an Internet connection).

Of these, the PiP requirement is receiving the most attention. [B]The PiP feature is a specific hardware function that must be built into a player, and BD-Java is simply used to operate this feature if it's present. No player shipped to date supports PiP at this time, although it's always possible that a given model has been designed to switch it on later (no company has announced this yet as far as I know).

My point is that it's important to separate picture-in-picture and the other items listed above from BD-Java. BD-Java is one of two interactive modes that can be used on a Blu-ray Disc (the other being "HDMV" or high definition movie mode, which is similar to DVD navigational structures). All BD players must support both environments.

If a studio offers a PiP function or other features that require the persistent memory or the ability to playback secondary video or audio streams on future BD titles, current players will not support those specific features. However, movie playback, as well as other interactive features not using these functions would be unaffected and should work as they normally would."
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

Not sure why this is in the HD-DVD forum.

Not sure why this is in the HD-DVD forum.
Because it has just unequicably been stated by the BDA that IME is EXCLUSIVE to HD DVD software! I think that's pretty big news for HD DVD software enthusiasts!

Blu-Rays inferiority is worth mentioning in the HD DVD forum. It is a reminder of why we went with the superior format.

For those who didn't already know that this was a major deficiency for Blu-ray:

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h123/awmurray/headinsand.jpg

Of course my Blu-ray mirror thread has elicited crys of "Who cares?".:rolleyes:

and that is why they set the deadline for October, so that of course, future players WILL support this function, making the thread-title just rubbish

also this sentence is worthwilke to note: "although it's always possible that a given model has been designed to switch it on later (no company has announced this yet as far as I know)."

again meaning that is BS that BD owners will "never" be able to use PiP

and that is why they set the deadline for October, so that of course, future players WILL support this function, making the thread-title just rubbish

also this sentence is worthwilke to note: "although it's always possible that a given model has been designed to switch it on later (no company has announced this yet as far as I know)."

again meaning that is BS that BD owners will "never" be able to use PiP


Hoping that the current Blu Ray players support pip (i.e., through firmware upgrades) is little consolation to those owners. As far as future players are concerned, assuming the market for stand alone BR players continues to be as poor as it is, this is more of a statement towards the lack of symmetry in the BDA organization for this format.

And I must say. It is extremely poor customer relations on the part of Sony, after these statements were made several weeks back in another form, that Sony has not as of this date committed to any firmware upgrade in this respect for its biggest selling blu ray player the PS3. This is either arrogance or the belief they can treat their customers any damn way they please.

In my mind a supposed next-gen format must be made up of three things: High res PQ, high res audio, and interactive extras. Regardless of how most people might rank those in terms of importance (PQ= A1, AQ=A2, Interactive Extra Features=Z), a format just doesn't feel next-gen to me if it doesn't have all three. Sure, with BD I can get movies with great PQ and AQ, but with HD-DVD I get something that really FEELS new! Granted, that feeling is not as important has having great PQ & AQ, but it's important nonetheless. To me at least.

I will be surprised if the PS3 doesn't support it in the future.

--Darin

BTW: one could also argue that it is extremely poor customer relations on the part of Microsoft, after these statements were made several months back, that Microsoft has not as of this date released any firmware upgrade in the respect of the poor audio quality for the biggest selling HD DVD player, the xbox 360 add-on ;)

Of course my Blu-ray mirror thread has elicited crys of "Who cares?".:rolleyes:We need a HD Hardware Discussion forum, so people don't feel the need to make mirrored threads. Anything regarding both formats' hardware could be discussed there.

its funny in the bluray fourm. They are all now saying how they dont need extras etc. If it were the other way around(with HD-DVD getting no IME etc) they would be saying how its the end for HD-DVD

Number of times I've turned on IME on an HD-DVD: 0.

This is not a good thing for BD players to be sure, but I just want the damn movie with awesome PQ/AQ. Both formats have been good with that so far.

its funny in the bluray fourm. They are all now saying how they dont need extras etc. If it were the other way around(with HD-DVD getting no IME etc) they would be saying how its the end for HD-DVD

I've always said that, even before HD and BD were even released. I always felt the same about DVD. Extras are nice, but they are just that: extra.

And be honest, you'd spin it in your favor if for some reason HD-DVD couldn't support IME anymore.

At this point I really don't care which format wins, or if either one "wins". As long as I can buy the movies I love in HD, I really don't care.

BTW: one could also argue that it is extremely poor customer relations on the part of Microsoft, after these statements were made several months back, that Microsoft has not as of this date released any firmware upgrade in the respect of the poor audio quality for the biggest selling HD DVD player, the xbox 360 add-on ;)

HD DVD's existence doesn't hinge on the viability of the hd dvd addon that's the answer. MS has no intrinsic interest in seeing the success of HD DVD (if they did they would have included one in the XBox 360 originally or in its "Elite" 120 gb brand) while Sony is betting its very business model on Blu Ray's success and that fundamentally through the PS3.

And this was posted here.....why?

Seriously people. Just enjoy your HD-DVD's. Who cares what Blu-Ray has or doesn't have. I personally think the IME isn't all that great anyway and I have a HD-DVD player.

HD DVD's existence doesn't hinge on the viability of the hd dvd addon that's the answer. MS has no intrinsic interest in seeing the success of HD DVD (if they did they would have included one in the XBox 360 originally or in its "Elite" 120 gb brand) while Sony is betting its very business model on Blu Ray's success and that fundamentally through the PS3.

I basically don't care. the add-on IS the biggest selling HD DVD-player and it doesn't offer the best audio quality possible. this is a fact.

on the other hand - BD hardware isn't able to handle PiP so far. however, audio quality is besides the picture quality the second major criterion for HD, whereas bonus materials is just _bonus_ material

I basically don't care. the add-on IS the biggest selling HD DVD-player and it doesn't offer the best audio quality possible. this is a fact.

on the other hand - BD hardware isn't able to handle PiP so far. however, audio quality is besides the picture quality the second major criterion for HD, whereas bonus materials is just _bonus_ material

Last time I checked the addon is not the driving force of HD DVD. It is the stand alones and purported future of millions of cheap stand alones. The PS3 has TrueHD(7.1) because it's intended to be THE competitive mass market high definition player. Selling it short of even the BDA specs is inexcusable. Maybe you don't want BD-J but movie studios such as Disney actually helped in the development of HDi with MicroSoft. So it's important to Disney and it is obviously important to a company like Warner - i.e., the Matrix as a prime example. I like HDi and am looking forward to Sony backing up the player which it's hinging Blu Ray's success on - the PS3 in accordance with the specs of the BDA. Anything short of that is a joke.

And do you actually have the HD DVD addon? I do, and it only operates as a second player with our other tv. Not intended to be a centerpiece for my home theatre. On the other hand, the PS3 is in the centerpiece (with my A1) of my home theatre.

well if they sold 100.000 standalones to this date and in february it was announced that the add-on was back then sold about 150.000 times, it is obvious which player is the biggest selling HD DVD player and it's the add-on. however, it is always possible that the reported sales of the add-on were wrong. if that is the case, i will stand corrected

and I like HDi, too. I have, however, not used any of the PiP HDi features so far, but I really enjoyed the GPS feature on the "miami vice" and "tokio drift" HD DVD. this would, however, not be a decisive factor for me in deciding to buy a disc, let alone a format


PS: since December I own the add-on. in fact, I have bought a xbox 360 just for the add-on. however, I have now gone through all my trueHD and DTS-HD HD DVDs and especially with HD DVDs of movies with a great soundtrack, the add-on simply is no fun anymore

well if they sold 100.000 standalones to this date and in february it was announced that the add-on was back then sold about 150.000 times, it is obvious which player is the biggest selling HD DVD player and it's the add-on. however, it is always possible that the reported sales of the add-on were wrong. if that is the case, i will stand corrected

and I like HDi, too. I have, however, not used any of the PiP HDi features so far, but I really enjoyed the GPS feature on the "miami vice" and "tokio drift" HD DVD. this would, however, not be a decisive factor for me in deciding to buy a disc, let alone a format


PS: since December I own the add-on. in fact, I have bought a xbox 360 just for the add-on. however, I have now gone through all my trueHD and DTS-HD HD DVDs and especially with HD DVDs of movies with a great soundtrack, the add-on simply is no fun anymore
From What I read a couple days ago the actual sales are 125,000 Standalone players sold and 92,000 HD-DVD add-ons. I think Microsoft was making an initial run of 120,000 on there first order but that ammount isn't hwat has been sold.


What I don't understand is why people are going to try running Truehd and DTS through a player that is going to downgrade it to DD5.1 anyways. Microsoft never said it was going to do anything different and while the current issues are annoying it just doesn't make sense to run either of those when other tracks are available.

Trust me on a single movie extras are never going to be a make or break thing, but for just about anyone the idea that they can't give your favorite movies the treatment they deserve isn't going to convince them to buy that tech. What is the extra space worth if they can't throw some of the most interesting extras on them, or at least a really sweet menu.

I don't enjoy IME at all. In fact, I'll buy a film on BD if it means I get it a month earlier, $2 cheaper, and without the 'In Movie Embarassment'. I'm really getting tired of watching the 'HD-DVD' self-pleasuring, sometimes non-skippable promos at the start of every disc, also.

I just want to watch the movie. If I want the extras, I'll buy the collector's edition. Studios just don't get it yet, but they eventually will. If you've never sat in a room with marketers trying to figure out how to sell a product, you haven't really lived (or lost your faith in humanity). :)

well if they sold 100.000 standalones to this date and in february it was announced that the add-on was back then sold about 150.000 times, it is obvious which player is the biggest selling HD DVD player and it's the add-on. however, it is always possible that the reported sales of the add-on were wrong. if that is the case, i will stand corrected

and I like HDi, too. I have, however, not used any of the PiP HDi features so far, but I really enjoyed the GPS feature on the "miami vice" and "tokio drift" HD DVD. this would, however, not be a decisive factor for me in deciding to buy a disc, let alone a format


PS: since December I own the add-on. in fact, I have bought a xbox 360 just for the add-on. however, I have now gone through all my trueHD and DTS-HD HD DVDs and especially with HD DVDs of movies with a great soundtrack, the add-on simply is no fun anymore


Let's be honest here. If that addon player were the linchpin for HD DVDs success then the format would be in trouble because of the very reason you indicated - sound and I would add HDMI. The fact that MS would release the Elite with HDMI but no support for the advanced audio codecs tells you where their interests lie. There's no way I would have purchased MS' HD DVD addon if that were THE player for HD DVD. For me it was only as an extra player. The PS3 for me however, was the only impressive Blu Ray player I was prepared to buy. It has the capability to be THE best blu ray player because of its powerful processors, hard drive, etc. Except for the speed issue and because of how the HD DVD forum conceived the specs the A1 is fully HDi compliant. And that's the difference in this debate.

Microsoft should get cracking on the promised updates.

"From Andy Parsons, U.S. Promotion Committee Chair, Blu-ray Disc Association:

Based on recent coverage, there appears to be some confusion about the implementation of BD-Java on Blu-ray Disc.

All Blu-ray Disc players must support BD-Java (BD-J) and every one shipped to date does. The confusion surrounds an announcement by the setting an Oct. 31 deadline for implementation of several secondary features. The deadline applies to:

– Secondary video, also known as picture-in-picture (PiP).
– Secondary audio.
– Persistent memory storage (a minimum of 256MB, 1GB for players with an Internet connection).

Of these, the PiP requirement is receiving the most attention. [B]The PiP feature is a specific hardware function that must be built into a player, and BD-Java is simply used to operate this feature if it's present. No player shipped to date supports PiP at this time, although it's always possible that a given model has been designed to switch it on later (no company has announced this yet as far as I know).

My point is that it's important to separate picture-in-picture and the other items listed above from BD-Java. BD-Java is one of two interactive modes that can be used on a Blu-ray Disc (the other being "HDMV" or high definition movie mode, which is similar to DVD navigational structures). All BD players must support both environments.

If a studio offers a PiP function or other features that require the persistent memory or the ability to playback secondary video or audio streams on future BD titles, current players will not support those specific features. However, movie playback, as well as other interactive features not using these functions would be unaffected and should work as they normally would."
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents
Another nail in HD DVD's coffin. ;)

I didn't think IME/U-Control was very cool until I played around with it on Children of Men. It freakin rocks!

The PiP features are only going to get better over time also.

To paraphrase MCuban, "HD DVD now, BD later (maybe)". Unfortunately for BD, "later" seems to be farther away than any of us realized.

If BD fails (big if) you really can see how Sony did it to itself. HD DVD group was both smart and practical by setting standards for their hardware.

I'm really getting tired of watching the 'HD-DVD' self-pleasuring, sometimes non-skippable promos at the start of every disc, also.

I don't pretend to have a complete collection of HD DVDs at this point, but my collection is pretty extensive. And I don't recall hitting any non-skippable promos at any point yet. What disc are you referring to?

I don't enjoy IME at all. In fact, I'll buy a film on BD if it means I get it a month earlier, $2 cheaper, and without the 'In Movie Embarassment'. I'm really getting tired of watching the 'HD-DVD' self-pleasuring, sometimes non-skippable promos at the start of every disc, also.

I just want to watch the movie. If I want the extras, I'll buy the collector's edition. Studios just don't get it yet, but they eventually will. If you've never sat in a room with marketers trying to figure out how to sell a product, you haven't really lived (or lost your faith in humanity). :)
You know you can skip the promos by hitting chapter forward on all HD DVD titles :) .

From What I read a couple days ago the actual sales are 125,000 Standalone players sold and 92,000 HD-DVD add-ons.92k for the add-on was for the end of 2006. I've seen much higher numbers since then. I believe it was 112k at the end of January for the add-on according to NPD.
I didn't think IME/U-Control was very cool until I played around with it on Children of Men. It freakin rocks!

The PiP features are only going to get better over time also.They should get better with time. While Blu-ray is taking longer to have their's ready, they designed for more. Like being able to have the secondary track be HD instead of limiting it to SD, for things like swapping it with the movie. When you are watching the PiP for how they setup a scene, which one are you focused on? I could see a lot of people wanting the making of part to be the big picture and the movie to be the PiP, and wanting HD, while other want the behind the scenes stuff to be the PiP (the small window). Just one thing that would be nice to have a choice on. The Blu-ray release of "Deja Vu" has extras with the movie that has some disadvantages compared to the PiP on some of these HD DVD releases, but one advantage also. It has to be selected before the movie starts (a disadvantage) and things branch to the extra (like showing the setup for an explosion before showing the scene with the explosion), but at least this setup part is in HD. That is nice for an HD format.

--Darin

Regarding crap at the start of a movie:

Just last night I popped in "Superman Returns" and it wouldn't let me skip the HD promo. I then put in "Serenity" and it was still there, but I could skip it. I love it when I put a disc in with the sound level set to a proper movie level, and the overloud promo blasts "YOU HAVE HD-DVD WOW" for the whole neighborhood to hear while I'm in the bathroom or something. I recall other Warner titles pissing me off with this stuff too, but I can't check it at the moment. I don't even know how to use IME, and I don't need to be reminded how cool it is with yet another trailer (for IME itself) at the start of every film.

Then, you have non-skippable FBI screens, ratings screens, commentary disclaimer screens, and god knows what else they'll think of.

Last night's showing was "Aliens vs. Predator" on BD. I'm sure I'm incorrect but I recall it went right to the menu, then to the movie. I love it. Too bad the disc is so expensive (thanks Fox) I won't buy it. Disney movies on SD are the worst of all, with what, 12 'skips' to get to the menu? And I could swear on the Pirates 2 disc you couldn't even hit 'menu' to get there during the promos. I've almost forgotten what DVD used to be like with a simple menu and quick satisfaction.

I think IME and all this fancy programming support behind it is just going to be used for more of this nonsense. That's why I not only think it's silly (because I'll never use it) but that it is going to be abused, guaranteed.

Aside from the obvious picture problems, I think I'm almost ready to go back to VHS. At least the fast forward button always worked, and I didn't have to boil my tape. The less 'features' on the disc, the better, IMO.

Wow, hd-dvd fanboys are really smarmy. At least the BD fanboy is just reacting happily to good news. Some people on here just spin any little bit of news they hear to their favor, and then proceed to make overly sarcastic remarks and give themselves a pat on the back for being 'smarter' than the other side's 'dumb' masses.

All that quote was issued for is to reiterate the fact that the new hardware coming out will be sure to include finalized specs to make sure that PIP will be fully accessible. It does suck for early non-PS3 adopters that their hardware won't support it, but if you were paying close attention, you'd realize that very soon, you will not have much to claim as an advantage over Blu-ray.

And to reiterate what a few others have said, why is this in HD-DVD software forum?

If BD can't do it, it's fluff and stupid. ;)

92k for the add-on was for the end of 2006. I've seen much higher numbers since then. I believe it was 112k at the end of January for the add-on according to NPD.
They should get better with time. While Blu-ray is taking longer to have their's ready, they designed for more. Like being able to have the secondary track be HD instead of limiting it to SD, for things like swapping it with the movie. When you are watching the PiP for how they setup a scene, which one are you focused on? I could see a lot of people wanting the making of part to be the big picture and the movie to be the PiP, and wanting HD, while other want the behind the scenes stuff to be the PiP (the small window). Just one thing that would be nice to have a choice on. The Blu-ray release of "Deja Vu" has extras with the movie that has some disadvantages compared to the PiP on some of these HD DVD releases, but one advantage also. It has to be selected before the movie starts (a disadvantage) and things branch to the extra (like showing the setup for an explosion before showing the scene with the explosion), but at least this setup part is in HD. That is nice for an HD format.

--Darin


Thats a great point and something that I wasn't really aware of.

Sony cares...





NOT!!!

If BD can't do it, it's fluff and stupid. ;)

Yeah, if Blu-Ray movies didn't have the 'Pause' feature... well I'll be Blu-Ray owners pretending that the 'Pause' feature sucks

"Who pauses their movies! People who pause movies are stupid!!!"

"Pausing is an outdated VHS feature! Why does HD DVD need an outdated VHS feature!!!"

"What! HD DVD owners can't hold their urine throughout the 10 hour Planet Earth!!! I ended up in the ER since my Blu-Ray player can't pause and I am damn proud of it!!!"