Blu Ray --Last Chance Saloon

[1kyle]

With decent "Upscaling" DVD recorders now cheap and commonplace most consumers won't feel the need to go out and buy either a BLU-RAY player / recorder or the Blu-Ray movies themseleves,.

In anycase SKY in the UK has a very good HD (High Definition) service and you can even download (legally) HD films via fast broadband if you are a suscriber so as I've previously posted in the past this type of gear has appeared just too late to be a significant player in this market.

However an enhanced "MD" recorder which also records Video would be a useful use for Blu-ray discs provided the machine could be made small and portable enough.

For any sort of archiving mass use of tiny flash cards IMO aren't really an option --at least not in the short term (next 5 - 10 years).

I'd certainly find use for something just slightly larger than a current MD player to be able to record a few hours of High Quality Video as well as uncompressed sound.

I'd find it also great to be able to say have 5 - 10 movies on a single disk at standard DVD quality --that would make the plane flights between Sydney and London a lot more enjoyable.

I think this is the ONLY future for BLU RAY. As a mass consumer home entertainment device it's not going to hack it especially with decent "Upscaler" DVD players available in Supermarkets such as TESCO ("Buy one and get one Free") at around 50 - 80 GBP a pop and recorders such as Panasonic at around 120 GBP (incuding built in Freeview TV tuners - terrestial digital) with HDMI and component video giving at least 720p and 1080i.

Most of the current Cheaper "HD Ready" TV's won't do 1080p yet but Joe Public probably doesn't care as you really need TV's bigger than 40 inch to get the most from true 1080p even when you CAN find content. Upscaled 720p or even 1080i looks fine to most people on typical LCD TV's say 32 inch and under.

The video quality of most domestic / consumer video cameras IMO is absolutely HORRIBLE especially when viewed on large plasma / lcd TV's.

Cheers

-K

Edited January 23, 2007 by 1kyle