Designers ready to go to work on Blu-ray and HD DVD interactive menus

With the capabilities offered by interactive menus, iHD and BD-J features, Blu-ray and HD DVD discs can go far beyond the simple static background menus we've gotten used to from DVDs. As a result, this CNet article indicates they will go from largely an afterthought to creating a need for professional designers able to get the most out of the new formats. David Anderson of Giant Software, fresh after attending the recent DVD Forum event, was interviewed so he was expectedly very high on the PiP, persistent storage-enabled downloads, and other capabilities of HD DVD. He also reiterated a claim we've heard frequently from the HD DVD camp, that Blu-ray's BD-J would be more difficult and expensive to take advantage of, but he seemed ready for that and is staffing up on programmers adequately experienced. We'll know this has gone too far when The Graduate's famed career advice "Plastics." is replaced with "Java" (U.S. MGM/Fox edition) and "XML (European StudioCanal release).

[Via digg]

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 9th 2006 8:12AM]

I would like to know where I can purchase the Panasonic LF-MB121JD Blu-ray drive -- supposedly it became available on June 10th but I'm not finding it. Thanks.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 9th 2006 2:11PM]

You know, I am sick of hearing about how iHD is easier to program than BD-J. Get over it! We heard the same belly-aching from webmasters when Mozilla Firefox started to get popular. "Oh, its too hard to code my webpage for both IE and Firefox; I'm just going to code it for IE".

For those programmers who rely upon this crutch to artificially prop up Microsoft's iHD format, I say to you that you deserve your jobs outsourced to Indian programmers who will do the job without complaint or sucking up to Redmond.

As for the article's assertion that HD-DVD devices require two decoders for simultaneous PiP decoding, how about swapping those two weak-sauce Broadcomm decoder chips for a decent Sigma Designs, Nvidia, ATi, or Cell chip capable of maintaining 1080p decoding/output and doing as such with H.264? Same goes for the Blu-Ray camp as well.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 9th 2006 2:14PM]

ps. I included the Cell processor on that list for HD-DVD since Toshiba is in on that partnership, not as some pro-Sony fanboi dig against HD-DVD.

And point-in-fact, the Broadcomm decoder chip used in both current HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players is a POS.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 9th 2006 7:54PM]

iHD is an XML-based interactivity specification currently used by HD DVD. It is not "Microsoft's iHD," but rather a specification developed jointly by Microsoft, Disney, and the DVD Forum.

Blu-ray uses a Java-based alternative BD-J.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 14th 2006 2:48PM]

For all intents and purposes, it is "Microsoft's iHD". They invented it, and attached Disney to it to try to give it some credibility. Disney doesn't even support HD-DVD, how much iHD work do you think they are doing? Microsoft created iHD pure-and-simple to prevent Java from building on it's standard position for cable TV (as part of OCAP, which will become a standard part of your set-top box and eventually TV over the next few years). MS has spent literally billions of dollars since the late 90's attempting to own the living room, and has precious little to show for it. iHD is just their latest failed attempt to force the industry to bow to their proprietary standards.