Authoring tools. Yes, this is something I had not considered. A platform (BDJ) may not be at fault, but I agree that authoring tools could damage it significantly. That is truely sad, since I would think it would be fairly easy to provide support for BDJ in existing Java IDE's. I'm sure you know, but for others benefit - IDE's for Java have been the most sophisticated, intelligent and productive development tools over any other language IDE for some time now.

I would take some exception to calling Eclipse the number one Java IDE though. ;-) It might be the number one *free* Java IDE, but my personal favourite is Intelli-J. If you get a chance, you should try it some time!

pkr: "but no one wants to take the time to do it with the unreliable and arcane Java implementation"

Your post is rather funny to even comment on. Do you work for Microsoft? Or just Toshiba?

Wow, some people really like HDi!

However, to correct the FUD (or perhaps just misunderstanding), BDJ is actually far superior. It has commerically proven implementation, and extremely developer-friendly feature-rich API's.

BDJ is actually not at all new, it is actually been around for some time (it is basically an implementation of GEM, and wait for it... AN INDUSTRY STANDARD), see here for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD-J

There are also arguably more Java programmers in the world than for any other language, this is supported by the fact that there are more Java jobs than for any other language. Why does this matter? It means they can bring to bear there considerable experience to bring things very unique to DVD interativity. Think of all those Java ME (mobile phone) developers...

It's a shame that the use of BDJ has not been taken up to well so far, and it is a shame that the quality of what has been put out is not too hot. However, this does not reflect, and is not the fault of BDJ itself.

I shudder at the thought of writing this kind of interativity stuff in XML (as is the case for iHD)... Yeuck. But wait, it also has Javascript for interactivity! Yay! Oh hang on, not many decent web games doing the rounds in Javascript are there... perhaps because it simply is not appropriate for pushing pixels. SMIL support is nice, but that is its only redeming feature.

I think once they get some decent Java 2D developers and artists on the case, you see see BDJ pretty much wipe the floor with the competition.

One thing you forgot to mention though Richard - BlueRay *already has* an interactivity layer. A extremely robust and mature one too: BlueJ - i.e. Java for Blueray. So no big guesses guess why MS want iHD... The problem is iHD is brand new, and completely unproven in the field. I think there is some shady behind-the-scenes deals going on between MS and HP here.