I have read about problems some are having with Blu-ray Machines that if they accidentally press stop on the remote they can not resume from the the same playing point they were at by pressing a "resume" button (which all my standard DVD players have)and are forced on some discs (Disney ones are mentioned) to watch the trailers etc..

I was wondering which Blu-Ray machines actually have a resume button that allows you to resume play?

I don't know of any that have a button called resume, then again don't think I ever saw one on DVD. The PS3 on most movies will stop and resume (when you press play) but not if you turn it off. My older Samsung does not.

For the disks (at least here) we can categorize them in 4 kinds

1) forced intro : intro before menu pops up and then you need to go to play, the intro could be previews but could also be something else
2) menu: menu pops up and you need to go to play to start the movie
3) previews: starts with preview and then continues with the show, the menu does not pop up, some are completely forced (can't FF or skip) others you can FF and others can be skipped one at a time. If you want the menu (for example for subtitles or audio selection) you need to press menu
4) movie: The movie start immediately (obviously there are the FBI and other warnings we have become accustomed to seeing). If you want the menu (for example for subtitles or audio selection) you need to press menu

The resume feature on standard DVD players is quite common in my limited experience (I mainly used Pioneer Machines) .
I love the feature that if you press stop (not pause as sometimes pause only holds for a limited time) and go and make a cup of tea or answer the phone or make a snack or get another beer that pressing the resume button starts at exactly the same place you just stopped the player.
It is quite a useful feature to me . As i said some one on another forum said Blu-Ray standalone machines don't tend to have this feature..(its interesting the PS3 seems to have everything i need and i may buy one for HD playback only)


Anthony with your experience of standalone Blu-ray players do you know of any with this type of resume feature whatever the manufacturer may call the feature or do you know of a standalone player (ie not a PS3)that will pause indefinitely?

Almost every DVD player that I have does that.

One of them that I have even remembers the resume point after the player is powered off.

However none of them have a "resume" button. They just go right back to where they were when you hit play. If you hit stop once and then play when it's already stopped, it starts over.

I can't believe they wouldnn't implement them into the next-gen players.

Sorry, I made a mistake in my previous post, the stop/play does actualy work on some movies and the PS3 with power off (again on some movies), so shift what I wrote by one click :)

though I did google (blu-ray "resume play") and found

[Link: forum.blu-ray.com]
[Link: hometheater.about.com]

but I don't know if it works and how.

The issue as I understand it is that BD content can be authored using BD-J or HDMV, HDMV is more advanced but similar to DVD and so resume works the same way, but BD-J is a programming language and some (not sure if all) have issues with resume (kind of like HD DVD where all the titles need to be HDi) because it needs to load the BD-J code before playing starts (and so needs to go back to the start)

useless info alert!!

my Pioneer Elite Standard DVD player will actually resume even after i've removed the disc from the tray and watched a different movie!

Even more useless information alert: my single-disc Sony ES DVD player does that for the last 300 discs! It's funny inserting a movie you haven't watched in *years* and having it start off at the end credits... :-)

It's mostly the cost cutting to sell DVD players for $19.99 that has removed any useful memory features from them... I have another Sony DVD in a bedroom that remembers the last 40 discs; the replacement model remembered just 7.

well at least your useless info totally trumps mine. :-)

on the slightly OT front but dealing with resuming. I really like what Disney did on the BD set for Lost.

They have this thing called "season play" and it keeps track of where you are, it is nice not to have to remember what episode you have reached

Note: on the annoying side of it you are also forced to see the previews and the introduction every time you start (at least for the first disk –I have not started the second one yet)

So far I've noticed Resume Play disabled only on the Disney (or Disney distributed) titles. Generally true for previews as well. I figure the Resume Play issues is simply a mastering issues that someone is unaware of because there is no logic to it and it only seems to happen on their disks. The preview thing I'm sure is intentional.

Strangely my Blu-Ray player remembers the stop location of a DVD even when powered off, but will not remember the stop location of a Resume Play enabled Blu-Ray when powered off.

Give them some time and these things will go away just like they did with DVD. I had a first gen DVD player and lived with it's ideosyncracies until last year when I got the Blu-Ray player which is a much better DVD player,but leaves a little to be desired as a Blu-Ray player.