So the war's over... apparently. Those of you working with HD have probably read all the announcements about the studios jumping ship but what could be more interesting news is that the HD DVD authoring geeks are moving into the BD-J developer communities.

What's BD-J? A Java development environment for Blu-Ray which means that you can create far more sophisticated games and interactivity for a Blu-Ray film title. Not to say that all (or even most) of the kinks have been ironed out yet. A few weeks ago, the 'scandal' of non-compliant Blu-Ray players emerged (if you bought early, you lose) and getting the BD-J interactivity to work on the earliest Blu-Ray titles (like Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl) was a matter of potluck.

But I feel a lot more comfortable now making the prediction that BD-J powered entertainment is going to explode in the next couple of years. We're at the beginning of a new medium. Sony DADC (one of the original members of the Blu-Ray consortium that control the specification) has to-date completed 150 titles and is aiming for a monthly capacity of 40 new titles. Once this tech filters out from the big studios to the independent film and A/V sectors, that's when things start to get interesting.

http://del.icio.us/michela/bd-j