Authoring for Blu-ray is much more involved than standard DVD. In addition to familiar tasks such as laying down audio, video, and subtitle assets, and creating chapter points, this format engages a customized “BD-J” layer (an interactivity layer using a form of Java). This language allows for an unprecedented amount of menu interactivity and increased functionality spanning the whole disc. If you can imagine it, it can probably be done: the sky is literally the limit!

However, the BD-J layer is still being developed and only just beginning to reach mainstream hardware compatibility. Until it becomes widely supported, the authoring is done in “HDMV” mode, which provides a much more robust set of commands and programming freedom than DVD, but still faces similar limitations.

Next step -> Pre-mastering