Auto Play

When a user inserts the disc into the player, it should automatically play the music as expected like a CD without having to go through the menu.

Basic Menu Layout

When designing the layout of the menu it should be comprehensive and easy to navigate.

The basic layout out of a BD menu should have the following:

• Play - Play the album
  
• Tracks - Selecting the track of the album.
• Setup/Settings - Contains the audio settings. This can be navigated with or without a menu using colored keys (🔴🟢🔵🟡), each for each audio stream. (The developer must implement this) Or the user can use the Audio key on their remote.
  
• Extras - Contains extra or bonus content such as featurettes, interviews, lyrics, etc. The majority of BD music albums don't have many extras (excluding physical material) as many music artists and labels want to focus purely on the music and take advantage of the Blu-ray technology

A simple menu for a BD music album

Navigating Tracks

Navigating tracks should be simple and easy for the user, if a user wises to navigate to a particular track.

Screenless Navigation

A BD music album must and should be like a CD, and let the user play the BD without having to use a screen since this is an audio-only application.

For the user to easily change the audio stream, a developer should provide the feature of letting the user use the color keys (🔴🟢🔵🟡) from their remote.

Video Background

Looped video backgrounds are often used for menus, screensavers, and for something that the user can look at. They're fine as long as they're short and doesn't compromise the disc space.

No Sound Effects!

It's highly not recommended to use button sound effects for an Audio BD menu as it's unnecessary and can be distracting to the user while listening to their music.

HDMV or BD-J?

HDMV should be used if a developer wishes their music application to be basic and simple as possible. It would load very fast in seconds and get straight to the music. BD-J can be used for additional features such as transferring music files from the Blu-ray player to a PC via local area network (LAN), but since it's using the Java Virtual Machine, it will take a little longer to load to get straight to the music.

Author(s): Æ Firestone