An open letter to all Blu-ray studios… re: Java Use

[Brad Ley]

An open letter to all Blu-ray studios… re: Java Use

I posted this on another forum, but since I think it might get in front of the eyes of those that need to see it quicker here, I'm posting it again. And since it was suggestions from these forums that got things as minute as what kind of stickum is used on security stickers changed, I feel compelled to bring this issue to the forefront.

As for history, I have been, since the launch of both formats, more red leaning than blue, almost without hesitation. I would buy the HD-DVD versions of Warner and Paramount titles and was less than a complete fan of the Blu-ray format. That all changed with the release of the Panasonic BD30. I have been able to realize that it has been the hardware, and not the software, that has been keeping Blu-ray from making the appropriate steps forward. Now that there is a player that I feel allows me to fully enjoy the benefits of Blu-ray, I have been busy converting much of my collection from red to blue. I recently partook in the Amazon 3-for-2 sale and replaced 12 of my Warner HD titles for Blu-ray for two simple reasons… Speed and Resume. The Panasonic player loads most discs in about 20 seconds and allows you to resume all basic authored discs, even after turning the player off. This, for whatever reason, is a nice advantage to me and I’m enjoying the new flexibility that this is giving me… except for

--JAVA--

I am noticing a more and more frequent trend (especially from Sony and Fox) of titles being authored in Java. This is troublesome for two reasons… Speed and Resume. As anyone here is already aware, the loading of a Java disc can take anywhere from 20-30 seconds (the PS3) to over 2.5 minutes (almost anything else). While the Panasonic is now certainly much closer to the PS3 than the Pioneer, Java still adds anywhere from 25-40 seconds to the load time and it also completely kills resume on every player.

Now I’m all for Java when there is a reason to author in it. Disney’s recent Santa Clause 3 has a clever Christmas decorator activity that clearly couldn’t be there without Java authoring. But why (other than the inclusion of bookmarks) is the original Spiderman authored in Java? There’s absolutely no features on the disc whatsoever, so now we have an example of authoring a disc in Java just to say you did rather than because you should have or had to. Similarly, the Die Hard releases are all authored in Java, and other than flashy menu animations and personal scene selections, the only thing the Java gives me is longer load times and no resume. I can do personal scene selections on a basic disc; I just go into scene selections and personally select a scene. Same ultimate effect. Legend of Zorro is another disc with Java authoring… Not for any features or because it’s necessary, but simply so we can have overly complicated menus with swords that move when you make selections.

So, to all you Blu-ray studios out there, please be judicious in your use of Java authoring, because there are some downsides to it as well. I completely understand that with the upcoming profile 1.1 discs, Java is going to be necessary, but I really feel it should be used only in concert with special features (and only with special features that actually need it). Use it when you need to and not simply because you want to or feel the need to show something off. A good rule of thumb would be that if you’re only using it for menus or menu related functions (like personal scene selections or bookmarking) then you’re misusing it and making your discs more complicated than they need to be (after all, how many players have needed firmware updates because they have trouble with basic authoring… not a lot).

[Jeff®]

Originally Posted by Brad Ley

An open letter to all Blu-ray studios… re: Java Use

I posted this on another forum,..

Stopped reading this opinion-shaping propaganda piece right at that point.

[Brad Ley]

Originally Posted by Jeff®

Stopped reading this opinion-shaping propaganda piece right at that point.

Um, OK. So you don't actually know what I said then? How fascinating.

[Paden]

Originally Posted by Brad Ley

Um, OK. So you don't actually know what I said then? How fascinating.

It isn't rare someone is called a troll here (or it's implied as in this case.)

Your point is well made. Just remember that a lot of users, particularly the younger ones, enjoy those gimmicks/features, regardless of the load times. I personally could do wihtout the talking skull in POTC but my 9 year old son loves it.

[JimboTHX1138]

My opinion....the players are going to get faster and faster with each generation as prices come down and parts get cheaper.

So the authoring of a Blu-ray Disc in Java is inconsequential.

[SpikesBluBlooded]

Originally Posted by Paden

It isn't rare someone is called a troll here (or it's implied as in this case.)

Your point is well made. Just remember that a lot of users, particularly the younger ones, enjoy those gimmicks/features, regardless of the load times. I personally could do wihtout the talking skull in POTC but my 9 year old son loves it.

I agree, this was a very well-made point, and it has merit. I, for one, am one of those die-hard Blu-ray fans that is annoyed by the load times. Sure, it's a new format, and there will be issues, but still annoying none-the-less.

So kudos to the OP for articulating his point without being petty or insulting, and welcome to the club! Brad is just another example of what has been stated here before, and that is of new adapters of Blu from the Red camp. There's going to be more of them, folks, and they shouldn't have to hide the fact that they've decided to switch formats in order to be taken seriously and without ridicule.

Anyone who reads through his entire post and still wants to call him a troll is a moron. He is bringing to light something that needs to be adressed, and isn't using FUD or a hidden agenda in making his point. So let's welcome yet another new member to the forum, a purple brethren on his way to being true-Blu, and encourage more from the Red camp to join us in supporting the superior format.

[wrsprow]

This thread is probably the best written and responded to that I have seen in the time I have been involved in the forum.

It is extremely refreshing to me to see informative discussions on the evolution of the high definition formats.

It seems to me that most of the forum members are more concerned in bashing HD DVD and tossing around their acronyms than anything else that might be considered constructive.

I totally agree with SpikesBluBlooded.

By the way or BTW to some of the text messagers, I am a full supporter of Blu-ray.

[Jeff®]

Originally Posted by TheSnowman

My opinion....the players are going to get faster and faster with each generation as prices come down and parts get cheaper.

So the authoring of a Blu-ray Disc in Java is inconsequential.

Exactly. Encouraging limits on BD software is extremely short sighted. Need I remind everyone that one major corporation doesn't want to see Java become the standard for interactivity in HDM, and that is one of the reasons why they are involved in this 'war'?

[joeorc]

i for one can see what the Problems the OP is pointing out about Java. and yes it is seen as a problem for the speed. I also understand that but look at it this way the load times will decrease in the future so that problem will not be as much of a problem as it is for some users right now. though i find there are Quite a number of people that do not care for the load times and while i think EVERYONE wants as low load times as there can be.

As for my self it does not bother me at all,since i am just in that way am just burnning time ,and going to be watching a movie any way..its not important ,because i am not pressed for time anyway. its like what am i going to be doing in the 2.5 min's at most that is important enough since i am just sitting down to watch a movie anyway.

when i was useing Atari 800's to run programs from a cas. tape you want to talk loading times... , now that's loading times....

To me i just do not see a load time of 2.5 min's as much of a deal ..that is just me though....

[PaulGo]

I see Java use as a way of raising the bar to implement new features. Now it's up to the software and hardware manufacturers to improve the application speed to acceptable levels.

[Paden]

Originally Posted by Jeff®

Exactly. Encouraging limits on BD software is extremely short sighted. Need I remind everyone that one major corporation doesn't want to see Java become the standard for interactivity in HDM, and that is one of the reasons why they are involved in this 'war'?

I guess you should've read more of the OP then. He didn't say not to use Java, he recommended using it judiciously.

[WickyWoo]

Exactly, what he's saying is "Don't make complicated pretty menus that require long loads if you don't have any real features that really use them"

Frankly I think it's more important to get a profile into every player that the disc can just read rather than benchmarking it, which is what causes the long loads

[Rob Zuber]

Would like to hear Talkstr8t's comment on this. What exactly has been established? That the presence of any BD-J code causes long load times? Or that particular BD-J programs are causing problems? If it is only certain programs, do we know specifically what those programs are doing that causes slowdowns?

[Brad Ley]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Exactly, what he's saying is "Don't make complicated pretty menus that require long loads if you don't have any real features that really use them"

Frankly I think it's more important to get a profile into every player that the disc can just read rather than benchmarking it, which is what causes the long loads

Yes, some people understood. I never said don't use Java or that Blu-ray discs shouldn't try to raise the bar. But I don't need to use a Bulldozer if I just need to plant a flower. Use the tools when they are needed and not just because you're trying to prove you can use them. No one looks at a disc and goes, "cool, it bookmarks!" But I'm sure many have stopped the movie accidentally and then got irritated that they had to go through the process to start it over, especially on a player that might take a few minutes to reload again. To the uninformed who won't know better, the lack of resume on an ever growing amount of titles looks like a real step backwards.

[Rio]

Originally Posted by Rob Zuber

Would like to hear Talkstr8t's comment on this. What exactly has been established? That the presence of any BD-J code causes long load times? Or that particular BD-J programs are causing problems? If it is only certain programs, do we know specifically what those programs are doing that causes slowdowns?

I posted this that I posted in another thread to share my thoughts about BD-J title loading time.

Long booting times on the 1G players seems mainly due to the lack of hardware decoding acceleration of graphics like PNG files. Lack of hardware acceleration and limited memory bandwidth were causing longer decoding time.

2G players/recorders like Panasonic BD30/BW700/BW800/BW900, Sony T50/T70/X90 have hardware graphics decoder in the new SoC and loading time is significantly reduced for those BD-J titles. Also graphics rendering speed gets much faster, (of course PS3 is doing much better), so playing Pinball game in Surf's Up becomes no problem on those machines unlike 1G players.

Another improvement I found is the ability to read files during AV playback. For example, Disney's "Filmmaker Q&A" uses this function, during playing the main feature, user can choose the question and the player loads the director's commentary audio data on demand, then play it mixing with the main feature's audio. On almost all of the 1G players do not support this function, only PS3 support this, but now at least 2G recorders of Panasonic and Sony support this. Since the file is loaded during AV playback, sometime it makes AV playback stuttering or takes long time to finish loading, what made me surprised was that new Panasonic finished loading file much faster than PS3 and without any AV stuttering, while PS3 sometimes caused AV playback pause during loading the file.

And, I agree with you, Brad. I don't think all titles do need to be authored in Java. Right-thing-in-the-right-place. Content creators had better think about that all the players in the consumers' hand may not have as good performance as PS3.

[The Guardian]

I wonder if eventually we might see resume even on Java discs as a special optional feature not necessarily included in the Blu-ray spec?

If you had enough local storage (which is getting cheaper and cheaper) you could in theory take a snapshot at any given point of everything in memory (much like standby mode in Windows).

It's probably not going to happen for switching discs (ie as soon as you insert a different disc it will wipe its memory) but at least we can turn the players off in the meantime.

There's no reason the PS3 shouldn't be able to do this already actually, it would just have to be programmed. Of course Sony wouldn't want to step on the other CE's toes either.

[glenn22]

I disagree with the OP. The load times on current generation stand-alone players might be a bit high, but look at the ps3... it loads Blu-ray discs about as fast as a dvd in a dvd player. If the PS3 can do that, then future BD players will surely be able to match that speed. This is another one of those things that we as early adopters have to deal with. Making simpler menus and such so that discs load faster is very short sighted.

And really... is it THAT big of a deal? I think having to wait a short time for a movie to load, and having to skip chapters to find where you left off (rather than resume) on some movies is a small price to pay for the level of PQ and AQ you get with todays High Def movies.

[w_tanoto]

ok. the disc (ratatouille) said that it will take 2-3 mins, but in reality, it can load in less than 5 seconds. not a lot of difference.

[bajor27]

While I do agree that using Java just for the sake of using Java is pretty ridiculous, I'm sure it won't be an issue in the near future so I can deal with it now

As for the uninformed being put off by the load times, I think they might be put off more when more and more titles leave of Java and load quickly, and then some great title that has Java takes a few minutes to load. Might make them think they got a bad disc or that someone screwed up.

[Seretur]

I agree with the original poster -- and a very well-reasoned post it was -- especially when it comes to the resume function.

It is essential to the comfortable viewing experience, and it should be made to work with BD-J authored discs as soon as possible.