What or Get Off the Pot?

I want to mention some personal opinions about Blu-ray today. It's a little shocking that I'm taking a few minutes on such a fantastic weekend when the glorious sun is out. Okay, I won't say much.

People who aren't considering the purchase of a Blu-ray player or discs are either not interested in high-definition movies at home or are in denial about the longevity of physical media. The first group have other priorities and that's certainly okay. The second lot should understand that the Internet won't be adequate for movie delivery for at least a half dozen years, if not considerably longer.

Those who maintain that Blu-ray picture quality isn't much better than a standard DVD, are blind, have never seen one, or don't own a television capable of 1080. Yeah, one can certainly make do while watching a movie stored on an old duel-layer DVD. There can only be 8 GB of data there however. That's simply not enough physical space for hi-def content.

Those who are waiting to download hi-def movies online had better have lots of time and an extremely rare Internet service provider. To receive one feature-length movie is beyond the monthly bandwidth caps of most current plans. It can take me up to 10 minutes, at present, to get a two-minute trailer via my PS3 and Telus DSL.



I hate to argue but physical media is the foreseeable future. Blu-ray is more than just a temporary stop-gap measure. In many ways people are born collectors. More importantly, BD Live will extend physical media content out beyond the disc itself. In many ways, BD Live hasn't even caught up with the capabilities of its former challenger, HD-DVD. But hey, Blu-ray's the only game in town now.