One of the most convenient features of DVD is the ability to stop the movie you're watching, turn off the DVD player, and in most cases even remove the disc from the player itself, and the movie will resume from the place in which you stopped when you're ready to begin watching again.
I'm sure this has been asked before, but I've never seen a good explanation, but is it too much to ask in the supposedly awesome upgrade of Bluray to include the same feature? I understand that this is not the fault of the Blu-ray player itself, but of the source disc not having the code for it. I know that it is possible as I've seen a few Bluray discs that do it, but the vast majority do not. What's up with this? I can't imagine that including this feature is cost prohibitive or degrades the quality or some other reason that prevents manufacturers from including it.
I agree that it is a very usefull feature. I was watching The arrival yesterday and the feature is available in that BD movie. However, most of the movies do not have the resume feature.
I never use BD Live nor do I ever intend to use internet features--
it is truly a bummer that you can't stop most movies without starting
all the way from the beginning (some with horrible load times to boot!)
LOL I don't mind load times, all blu-rays pretty much load immediately for me. I hate the ones with the previews that you have to forward chapter past instead of skipping them completely. Especially the ones that advertise blu-ray, it's like HELLO, I almost own 300 of the buggers you don't need to advertise it to me!
I get really annoyed when I'm watching a TV show on Blu-ray that doesn't have resume play. I just finished the first 2 seasons of Dexter and it had resume play (except the last disc of season 2) but now I'm watching Mad Men season 1 and it doesn't have resume play and it drives me crazy. I usually only watch 15-20 minutes of an episode at a time so it's annoying to have to fast forward to the point I was at. Not a huge deal, but a nuisance for sure.
They say it's a limitation of the java platform, but that's a load of hogwash.
They recommend that users use the bookmark feature, but it's not even available on all titles.
But it is entirely possible that the player's could be designed in a way such that when the power or stop button is pressed, it would automatically save a bookmark in its memory as if you had pressed the button for it, then when the disc loads the next time, it would recognize that you had recently auto-saved a bookmark and autoplay from that point in the feature.
Very simple workaround, but the software and hardware needs to work together. There needs to be a standardized method by which players could autosave a bookmark for a film regardless of how it's programmed or what studio it came from.
But really, this is exactly how DVD resume works. It notes the place in the movie where it is, saves it in memory, then skips right to that part the next time the film is loaded. The very fact that bookmarks are possible and recommended to emulate this feature prove that it's possible on the software's end to resume, just a matter of working a way for the hardware to do it automatically.
Personally, I don't see what all the fuss is over resuming a movie where you stopped it. How many times do you start and not finish a movie? A few button presses in the menu, and your right back to where you stopped.
Personally, I don't see what all the fuss is over resuming a movie where you stopped it. How many times do you start and not finish a movie? A few button presses in the menu, and your right back to where you stopped.
No one says it's a fuss. It's just odd that BD players/discs generally lack the capability when DVD players/discs generally had it.
This is direct from Sony as to why Resume does not work as expected on BD-J titles:
Quote:
Resume play won't work because BD-J application in the disc disables the resume function. The Java software controls playback plus all the interactive content (like what Windows OS does on the computer). When you hit stop, or turn off the player, the Java application on the disc reboots in the next playback. This results in resuming playback from the beginning of the disc. Therefore you should use pause instead of stop for Blu-ray disc that supports BD-J application.
Sony's compromise for Resume is the Bookmark function:
Quote:
Is there a resume playback equivalent in Blu-ray player that utilizes Java?
Yes, it is possible using Bookmarks on the Blu-ray disc depending on disc type.
Some BD-J programmers have found a way to program resume into BD-J titles:
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2themax
Resume is possible on BD-J titles. I have personally written the code and it will incorporated on all future BD-J releases that I work on.
Though I didn't work on this particular release, anyone who has Bug's Life can test how resume on a BD-J title will work. It was the first title to market with the capability.
Of course, sharing that code is a different matter altogether:
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2themax
The industry is very competitive. One authoring house is not going to share with another. If the BDA was to publish the code as a spec update, then all would have access to it.
I suspect that most discs with BD-J and resume are actually programmed to add a hidden bookmark which when the discs loads, another piece of BD-J code looks for the bookmark.
I reckon that a lot of people complaining about this are forgetting that they are really complaining about a feature, not a standard. 10 years ago, no one expected that if they closed a word processing program without saving, their work would be saved, just in case. Now, if a program doesn't have a feature to save your work if it quits unexpectedly, it seems to be a travesty.
However, we've come a long way in computer programming. Likewise, we still have an arduous path to cross with blu-ray programming. Blu-ray discs that are scripted with BD-Java cannot be looked at as movies; rather, they are executable macros, that must be reactivated each time they want to be used. As such, some studios have included bookmark features to force-save a scene for later access. This becomes the best workaround. Some studios, or movies, however, do not include this feature simply because it is not deemed necessary by the authors of the disc, or because it is seen as being more complicated than it is worth.
Remember, even DVD resume is far from reproach; if, like me, you like to start every episode of a TV series from the synopsis, you do not get to resume from a Menu; instead, the disc is restarted from the last shut-off point, even if the last shut-off point was 3 episodes earlier, which could be days, weeks earlier. However, just like I've learned to deal with this issue, users of BD-J discs (again, key word users; no one is forcing the blu-ray format onto anyone, nor it is officially being heralded as the new standard) will simply have to learn to bookmark, or to turn off the movies between recorded chapters, for easy retrieval.
For a short moment, I will entertain some of the comments that have come up;
1) It's not what the Director wanted.
Well, accept that it's not. No one directs, writes, or produces a movie taking into account when and where people want a break. Do you get the same experience watching Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket in two 1-hour sittings as you do watching it in one go? No, you don't. Small, easy example; but a telling one. It seems easy to forget that movies were not available for home viewing (and controlling) much, much later than they were available, period. One can argue on the "changing times for movie watching" all they want; a movie is still written, directed, and produced to be seen as a whole, not as parts of a whole.
2) DVD's could do it.
I've touched on this a little bit, but beyond what I've said already, who cares? Laser Disk films offered the mind-blowing feature of original-aspect-ratio for years before it became "accepted" through DVD distribution, in the mainstream-sense. And still today, well over 10 years later, there are people debating, and in some ways crucifying, the merits or original aspect ratios over "filling their TV screens".
So, if you happen to be a person who encounters the lack of a 120 minute window to watch a flim in regularly, realize that you are neither the norm, nor the intended audience. And before I have to field this question, being the majority does NOT make you the intended audience. And in some cases, it doesn't make you the norm, either.
I apologize for the fact that some novels are shorter than this post, but everyone knows that I always get carried away. And to anyone I've offended; you're welcome.
If we can count on them to give us the bookmark feature, it's not unreasonable for us to also expect them to have an auto-"bookmark". If the technology is capable of starting the video at a predetermined point in the middle, and that point can be written to memory, there is no reason that a resume capability should be withheld.
It's one thing for the people coding it to have not bothered to write the code for it, but it's something else completely to claim that it's not possible with the technology.
I reckon that a lot of people complaining about this are forgetting that they are really complaining about a feature, not a standard.
This is a good point, as not every DVD player had this feature, particularly in the first few gens. My first one certainly didn't.
I will say, however, that since it is possible to implement in Java, the BDA should have made an effort to develop that code and make it part of the BD-J standard before Blu-ray was released. Obviously Blu-ray was rushed to market and hindsight is 20/20, but at the very least they could compensate by making it standard from here on out.
I was to believe that Blu-Ray was taking everything that was good from DVD technology and continuing it. (if not IMPROVING it) Not having a Resume feature feels like a step backward.
I know that Blu-Ray players are still in their relative infancy, but it's not like they are starting completely from scratch. If the Java technology that they use to author a Blu-Ray does not make it easy for all movies to be able to be resumed when stopped, then the technology is flawed. At the BARE MINIMUM, we should have the features that are common in todays DVD players. Just like at the BARE MINIMUM DVDs needed to do everything common VHS players did. (pause, FF, REW, slow-motion, etc)
I watch a lot of TV shows on DVD. Most of them have a "Play All" feature that plays one episode directly after the other without me having to go back to the menu and select the next episode. I could watch 5 episodes, stop the DVD player, turn it off, and sometimes take it out of the tray. And when I put it back in, it would take me right to the point where I left off. With blu-ray, if I stop it, i have to restart the entire blu-ray disc, go past all the logo screens and FBI warnings, then go to the Chapter menu, choose my episode (assuming I know which episode i was on), then shuffle through the scene thumbnails until i see something that looks like the scene where I left off)
Another thing that is a step backward is loading times of discs. DVD players usually start within 4 or 5 seconds. Not so with Blu-Ray. You can give excuses that there is a lot more content on a Blu-Ray so it needs more time to load, but the end customer doesn't care. It's a step backward. They should have figured out a way to start it a lot faster.
And don't get me started with BD-Live and the various versions and incompatibilities. My DVD player can play ALL DVDs and watch ALL of their Bonus Features. If I spend 300 dollars on a Blu-Ray player, I shouldn't have to wait for a firmware update to get my Blu-Ray disc to play properly or to access a certain Bonus Feature. The fact that they didn't make having internet connectivity a REQUIREMENT for all BD players shows that this whole platform was rushed in attempts to get on store shelves and embedded into consumers minds.
The ONLY thing I like about Blu Ray discs is the picture quality. But, I don't know if people are going to give up their DVD players for just this one improvement. (and inherit all the headaches I mentioned above)
If the disc has to "load" - i.e: it gives you a screen with a time bar indicating that the disc is loading up, then the resume feature is unavalialbe....
If you do not get a "load" screen, the resume feature will work.
This also seems to be determined by the amount of data on the disc. The more data (such as higher video codes, HD sound codes etc) packed on the disc generally means that you have to wait for it to load and "resume" feature will not work.
It's a good indicator to let you know if you have to "pause" or "stop"
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Is the resume feature so difficult?
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