What is Disney's Interest in this War?

[caliminius]

Pardon my laziness if there is already a thread for this, but what is Disney's roll in the format war?

I understand that they are interested in region coding and probably the extra copy protection of BD+, but other than that why are they such strong supporters of Blu-Ray? They've now participated in 2 BOGO free sales, their Blu-Ray tour, and their advertising which emphasizes the Blu-Ray version quite strongly? I could understand if they were a hardware manufacturer, but as they are only a producer of the software. Are the technical aspects of Blu-Ray that compelling for them to push so hard for it?

One concern I have is the Disney-Apple link. Apple to me probably shares much in common with Microsoft in that they would probably rather see physical discs fail and downloads win (provided through the iTunes Store of course). This also has the added advantage (for Apple) that iTunes video only works on Apple hardware and via Apple software. As happy as I am with my iPod and my Apple computer, I find the thought of one company controlling the whole system a bit disturbing. Jobs has already made disparaging remarks concerning standardd DVD and despite being a member of the BDA, Apple has yet to provide a system containing a Blu-Ray drive and there is currently no way to play a Blu-Ray movie on an Apple computer even with an attached Blu-Ray drive; their overall support seems quite lacking and almost seems designed partially just to fuel the MS-Apple feud.

So again, what is Disney's part in this war? Why are they such ardent Blu-Ray supporters?