Java software support

At the 2005 JavaOne trade show, it was announced that Sun Microsystems' Java cross-platform software environment would be included in all Blu-ray Disc players as a mandatory part of the standard. Java is used to implement interactive menus on Blu-ray Discs, as opposed to the method used on DVD video discs, which uses pre-rendered MPEG segments and selectable subtitle pictures, which is considerably more primitive and less seamless. Java creator James Gosling, at the conference, suggested that the inclusion of a Java Virtual Machine as well as network connectivity in some BD devices will allow updates to Blu-ray Discs via the Internet, adding content such as additional subtitle languages and promotional features that are not included on the disc at pressing time. This Java Version is called BD-J and is a subset of the Globally Executable MHP (GEM) standard. GEM is the world-wide version of the Multimedia Home Platform standard.

Region codes

Regions for Blu-ray standard^[44]

A: East Asia (except Mainland China and Mongolia), Southeast Asia, North America, South America and their dependencies. B: Africa, Southwest Asia, Europe (except Russia and Kazakhstan), Oceania and their dependencies. C: Central Asia, East Asia (Mainland China and Mongolia only), South Asia, Europe (Russia and Kazakhstan only) and their dependencies.

Blu-ray Discs may be encoded with a region code, intended to restrict the area of the world in which they can be played, similar in principle to the DVD region codes, although the used geographical regions differ. Blu-ray Disc players sold in a certain region may only play discs encoded for that region. The purpose of this system is to allow motion picture studios to control the various aspects of a release (including content, date, and in particular price) according to the region. Discs may also be produced without region coding, so they can be played on all devices. The countries of the major Blu-ray manufacturers (Japan, Korea, Malaysia) are in the same region as North America. As of early 2008, about two-thirds of all released discs were region-free.^[45]

Major studios have different region coding policies. Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios have released all of their titles region free.^[46][47] Sony Pictures and Warner Bros have released most of their titles region free, but titles released by Warner's New Line division are region-coded.^[48][49] Lionsgate and Walt Disney Pictures have released a mix of titles that were region free and region coded.^[50][51] 20th Century Fox has released all but one of their titles region coded.^[52]

However, since the demise of the HD-DVD format which did not support Region Coding, the majority of Blu-ray releases are now region coded.

In the Blu-ray region coding system, the United States is placed in region A while regions B and C are used for countries which can experience localization delays before U.S. titles are officially released. The opposite, though, is sometimes true and a few new titles such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Running Scared were released in certain European countries before the U.S. release.^[53] In response to the DVD region system, multi-region and region-free DVD players became dominant in certai