Blu-ray: The greatest format that sucks

Blu-ray is a great technology and I am hard pressed to find anything that is going to replace it soon, even the sudden love affair with 3D (again) isn’t going to dethrone it anytime soon. It is going to be around for a longer life then DVD even though many are pushing for internet delivery.

Internet delivery won’t be here for a long time because there isn’t that much broadband capability in the U.S.A. as of yet, and those that do have it are seeing caps put on their downloads. I use Comcast and they have a 250GB monthly download cap on my service which I am sure I get close to with the amount of Netflix, PSN (Playstation Network) rentals/purchases, iTunes purchases, YouTube/Hulu views and more digital services I use to watch films and television. Add in the BD-Live features on Blu-ray and I am just about bursting at the seams before you even get to the video editing/website development I do that requires massive downloads of assets.

Blu-ray brings us even better viewing experiences then we could have had before. Often times, when the wife and I venture to the cinema, we will be sitting there thinking “this is going to look great on Blu-ray!” and we can’t wait to purchase the film. That is how great Blu-ray is to not just myself but to many others.

The disappointment I have at some companies is not because the format is new and they haven’t figured out how to use it properly, it is because they are not taking the time to figure this stuff out before putting their films on it.

In the DVD era we had a term, “Double Dip”, that was used when a studio would release a “new and improved” version of a film on DVD. This meant that they just rushed a previous version on to DVD and then took some time to do it right before releasing the proper version of the film. This was a way for the studios to make double the money on one film, and we all fell for it easily.

We won’t be moving away from that sales tactic with Blu-ray but I would like to see the enforcement of the Blu-ray specs be a bit more stringent. As it was explained to me the films on the disc would be full 1080p as well as all the assets. This is not happening but at a few studios.

I implore those studios to step up to the heights of Disney and Lions Gate Entertainment. There is no reason for the lack of correct usage of the format that some studios have exhibited except cost cutting and laziness.

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