BD-J. What’s that you say? Blu-ray Disc Java, I guess. Part of the Blu-ray standard is a Java runtime environment so that your BD player can do all sorts of nifty interactive things. Including hooking up to the internet to get the latest movie trailers and movie-related content. (Or other content, for that matter.)

Now, when I bought my first DVD player eons ago (a Toshiba), I thought all those interactive menus and such to be cool. I always checked out the special features to see what was available. But you know, as time goes on, I’m looking at these features less and less. I can’t remember the last time I watched a making-of featurette which is really just-a-big-commercial. So I don’t think I really care about BD-J.

So I don’t think I need to connect my BD player to the internet, avoiding much of the paranoia Dan Ramer seems to have about BD and HD-DVD players affecting your player’s firmware.

Of course, the idea of your legally-purchased software and/or hardware being revoked is a scary one. If that were to happen to me, I’d be royally ticked off. If you’re concerned about this too, take a look at Dan Ramer’s article, and write some letters (he provides addresses).

But it occured to me that there’s one player that would probably never get revoked, just because its manufacturer would face so much backlash if it was. It’s called the PS3. There’s no way Sony would ever allow its cash-cow to make it to the revoked list. Nuh-uh. Just one more reason to buy a PS3!

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