I know you just ran out to get your Blu-ray player; well I hope you kept the receipt. Apparently, the “High Def Winner” isn’t quite done yet. The Blu-ray hardware standard is not finished just yet as it has been reported in VideoBusiness that coming October 31, Blu-ray hardware must now support additional features, including picture-in-picture, 256MB of persistent memory, and 1GB of download memory. It looks like the newly announced Matrix DVD, along with others, need these features to take advantage of the fully interactive experience. Currently, PSP3 players will not support these added features and neither will Sony’s low priced offering due this summer, the BDP-S300, nor will a few low priced models from Pioneer and Philips.
It remains to be seen how current users as well as those manufacturing high def discs will approach this change. It certainly will not help the current downward trend in pricing and it is just one more reason to wait.
