With the price of Blu-ray players dropping, it may be tempting to go and pick one up. You may want to hold off though as the Blu-ray Disc Association has mandated that all players released after October 31st must be able to play back picture-in-picture video and hold 256MB of memory to help power this feature. Players with an internet connection must also have 1GB of memory to hold downloadable content.
The Blu-ray Disc Assn. has mandated that all hardware streeting after that date must be able to play back picture-in-picture video, as driven by BD Java interactive technology. Many players on shelves now can handle BD Java, but to varying degrees. Few Blu-ray players include picture-in-picture capability, for instance, not even the PlayStation 3.
Sony's current and summer 2007 stand-alone models and available Pioneer and Philips units are among those lacking the picture-in-picture feature.
With two different pools of players at retail in the near future, studios will have to navigate how to best create titles that play universally. A title with a highly touted picture-in-picture feature, for example, might not play properly on all players.
Unfortunately, those that shelled out a small fortune for first gen Blu-ray Disc players probably won't be able to take advantage of features like picture-in-picture, even with a firmware update. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here.
