Personally I am avoiding Blu Ray because of its high price tag (during the format war Blu Ray prices had to come down to compete with HD DVD thus spiking a price war -- HD DVD was cheaper to manufacture and could be sold cheaper and still generate a profit -- Blu Ray prices came down so Blu Ray manufacturers could generate market share for the format and their players but had to start selling Blu Ray players at a loss. Case in point the PS3 had a huge price tag of $500-$600 minimum when it first came out and that's just for the system itself -- a hidden tax existed on the PS3 when you counted game sales and accessory sales.
The single greatest factor contributing to the PS3's high price tag was the costly Blu Ray player. It is quite ironic despite Blu Ray besting HD DVD (if I had to choose between the two evils would have chosen HD DVD which had Managed Copying -- which is supposedly now on its way to BD but in 2010 and may only work with new discs, and new players) that the PS3 is dead last in the current console race. Sony hoped to use the PS3 to push Blu Ray adoption, for me personally the inclusion of BD on PS3 is a non starter for me. I opted not to go with PS3 because of Blu Ray. I don't need or want it.
Blu Ray has DRM to prevent personal copying for fair use (Managed Copying only lets you make a digital copy of a disc once to the computer but if the original disc gets ruined you cannot copy the copy with Managed Copy to another disc.) and has incompatibilities with Apple Macs as well as Linux (even if you have one of the newer Intel based Macs that can run Windows which is the only operating system that supports BD authoring and playback -- due to it being the only OS to incorporate AACS encryption since Macs lack Blu Ray drives it is impossible even in the Windows environment unless on a standard PC with Windows -- you cannot use Blu Ray due to Apple's decision to not include it in their hardware -- sure some companies offer the option to upgrade a Mac with a Blu Ray drive in the process you would be voiding your warranty with Apple though) nor will it work with Linux. While Mac and Linux users are a minority compared to Windows PC users they are still users and still deserve to be able to have the same technology as Windows users.
It is possible for Blu Ray technically and legally to come to Macs should Apple decide to bring it to the Mac computer and OS, but Linux which is open source cannot be supported with Blu Ray as no Blu Ray vendor will allow Blu Ray playback on an OS without copy protection -- Linux will never have AACS so legitimately there will never be Blu Ray for the Linux user who will have to hack Blu Ray DRM to make Blu Ray Discs work with Linux.
Granted I do like downloading/streaming media I agree having video in a physical format is better --- I don't see much value in digital storefronts like Apple iTunes for movie sales etc as they don't offer the extra features you can get on a DVD or Blu Ray version of a movie. Also the HD quality on iTunes is not up to speed with Blu Ray but I won't use either because of DRM. I oppose Fair Play copy protection in content distributed via iTunes Store, and AACS encryption on Blu Ray.
Also it is ridiculous how movies released to iTunes for sale/rent often are removed entirely after they leave pay per view -- as iTunes is treated as part of the pay per view window even when it comes to sales, they do this because TV networks airing premium movies don't want competition. Buying a movie from iTunes should be the same as on DVD or Blu Ray in regard to window availability -- if a DVD can be made available of a film or program permanently why not the same with venues like iTunes.
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Personally I am avoiding Blu Ray because of its high price tag (during the format war Blu Ray prices had to come down to compete with HD DVD thus spiking a price war -- HD DVD was cheaper to manufacture and could be sold cheaper and still generate a profit -- Blu Ray prices came down so Blu Ray manufacturers could generate market share for the format and their players but had to start selling Blu Ray players at a loss. Case in point the PS3 had a huge price tag of $500-$600 minimum when it first came out and that's just for the system itself -- a hidden tax existed on the PS3 when you counted game sales and accessory sales.
The single greatest factor contributing to the PS3's high price tag was the costly Blu Ray player. It is quite ironic despite Blu Ray besting HD DVD (if I had to choose between the two evils would have chosen HD DVD which had Managed Copying -- which is supposedly now on its way to BD but in 2010 and may only work with new discs, and new players) that the PS3 is dead last in the current console race. Sony hoped to use the PS3 to push Blu Ray adoption, for me personally the inclusion of BD on PS3 is a non starter for me. I opted not to go with PS3 because of Blu Ray. I don't need or want it.
Blu Ray has DRM to prevent personal copying for fair use (Managed Copying only lets you make a digital copy of a disc once to the computer but if the original disc gets ruined you cannot copy the copy with Managed Copy to another disc.) and has incompatibilities with Apple Macs as well as Linux (even if you have one of the newer Intel based Macs that can run Windows which is the only operating system that supports BD authoring and playback -- due to it being the only OS to incorporate AACS encryption since Macs lack Blu Ray drives it is impossible even in the Windows environment unless on a standard PC with Windows -- you cannot use Blu Ray due to Apple's decision to not include it in their hardware -- sure some companies offer the option to upgrade a Mac with a Blu Ray drive in the process you would be voiding your warranty with Apple though) nor will it work with Linux. While Mac and Linux users are a minority compared to Windows PC users they are still users and still deserve to be able to have the same technology as Windows users.
It is possible for Blu Ray technically and legally to come to Macs should Apple decide to bring it to the Mac computer and OS, but Linux which is open source cannot be supported with Blu Ray as no Blu Ray vendor will allow Blu Ray playback on an OS without copy protection -- Linux will never have AACS so legitimately there will never be Blu Ray for the Linux user who will have to hack Blu Ray DRM to make Blu Ray Discs work with Linux.
Granted I do like downloading/streaming media I agree having video in a physical format is better --- I don't see much value in digital storefronts like Apple iTunes for movie sales etc as they don't offer the extra features you can get on a DVD or Blu Ray version of a movie. Also the HD quality on iTunes is not up to speed with Blu Ray but I won't use either because of DRM. I oppose Fair Play copy protection in content distributed via iTunes Store, and AACS encryption on Blu Ray.
Also it is ridiculous how movies released to iTunes for sale/rent often are removed entirely after they leave pay per view -- as iTunes is treated as part of the pay per view window even when it comes to sales, they do this because TV networks airing premium movies don't want competition. Buying a movie from iTunes should be the same as on DVD or Blu Ray in regard to window availability -- if a DVD can be made available of a film or program permanently why not the same with venues like iTunes.