The HD Advisor is a weekly Q-and-A column at highdefdigest.com in which readers can send in questions to which the staff tries to help answer. Anyhow, in this week’s column, they go over why some Blu-ray discs don't support play-resume:
[…] Just to clarify, the lack of a Resume Play option is tied to BD-Java […]. While all BD-Live discs are authored with BD-Java (so they do go hand-in-hand to a certain extent), it’s also possible for discs without BD-Live to share this problem. Java-enabled discs will usually start with a “Loading” icon before the main menu, and tend to take longer to load than non-Java titles. All of Fox Home Entertainment’s James Bond Blu-rays are programmed with BD-Java, even though none have BD-Live content, for example.
I agree that this is a major shortcoming of BD-Java, and I’m flabbergasted that none of the Blu-ray format developers ever gave this issue serious consideration. […]
So, that’s the scoop, apparently; I’m glad it wasn’t just me. (Up until now, I wasn’t quite sure if maybe I just hadn't configured my Blu-ray player quite right.) That aside, though, Blu-ray still offers a phenomenal picture, so I'm going to continue happily buying Blu-ray discs :).
Alex,
Could you recommend a Blu-ray movie that would make a good “demo” to show off the capabilities of a new A/V system? From the few Blu-ray movies I’ve seen, the encoding quality varies dramatically from disc to disc. I’m sure that some of the variation is due to lower quality or older original film stock, but even a few “new” movies sometimes have picture quality more like DVD than Blu-ray.
Hi Mike!
That’s a pretty good question :). Since my reply might have ended up a bit long for a comment, I’ve written up a blog post with some ideas on that.
There are a lot of bluray discs I would love to own ….. and I can afford them
BUT
I will not buy a bluray disc if it does not have resume
I wonder if they know how many sales they are losing.
I have many friends who feel the same way!!!
Although I have a blu-ray player the lack of resume has put me off buying blu-ray discs.
My old Sony DVD player can remember and resume for the last 5 discs – very handy if for example I am watching a TV show like Seinfeld and then later swap the disc to watch a movie.
I never watch a whole Seinfeld disc at once – but usually an episode or two at a time. Without the resume I’d have to remember which episode I last watched and have to spend 1 minute watching the “This video is copyright” message and the “Any views in the commentary do not represent the views of Sony…blah..blah” – both screens can’t be skipped or fast forwarded and appear each time you insert a new disc. With the resume I just see them once – on Blu-Ray it’d be everytime!
Yeah, NO RESUME??! Yo, Not cool! Gotta admit I didn’t see that one coming, and I did a LOT of “due-dilligence” before buying. I just bought my first blu ray player, (the Sony BDPS380) and I’m severely MIFFED it doesn’t resume. GA-RON-TEED this will have a VERY significant impact on my BD disk buying, or lack there of. Fortunately my local LIBRARY maintains a very respectable BD colllection. So I can just feed mine that way. Factoring in the no resume, for free the price is right.
I dont buy blu ray and until they have resume never will.
Specially at the added cost of a blu ray disc which is not that much better to justify the cost and no resume. And not to mention how we are treated like criminals with all the warnings you cant skip over.