Do we really need Blu Ray?
Do you really need a high definition format like Blue Ray to watch high def movies?
This is, of course, what Sony wants you to believe: that the only way to enjoy high definition video is to pay hundreds of dollars for a BD Drive. But I think that there isn’t really any technical reason to do so.
For example, a 720i hour long TV show, with ads removed and compressed with a format like DivX, is about 350mb. Since a DL DVD can hold up to 8.5GB, you could hold more than 24 complete HD episodes on a single DVD. While the compressed quality may suffer a bit, the advanced post processing techniques available with free codecs makes it look almost as good as the original.
Nor would you necessarily need computers to play such DVD’s. There are many stand alone players capable of playing compressed formats like DivX. They may be a bit more expensive, but are still more than a hundred dollars cheaper than a BD drive.
Even if you double the quality of the show, to as high or better than 1080p, you could still fit an entire season on 2 or 3 DVD’s. Another thing to consider is that computer screens can be higher quality than HDTV’s. Most modern graphics card can output to 2560x1920 or higher, which is far greater than 1080p.
In review, I think the reasons for Blue Ray as the only high def format are more marketing than technical. And if you have a HD TV Tuner, there is no reason you can’t make your any HD-DVD’s – on normal DVD’s.
