Do you think Sony will ever pull ahead this generation?

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Being satisfied with what is out now may be good for your wallet, but it sure as shit ain't good for progress. If I had a Blu-Ray Burner, I could back up my entire hard-drive on one disc. I dunno about you, but I think that's pretty damn useful.

You have a 50 gigabyte harddrive??

Between all my drives, I have over a terabyte now. No amount of physical backup is ever going to be practical.

Don't forget that double layer Blu-Rays can hold around 100GB of data so factoring that 1000GB's = 1 Terabyte somewhere around 10 discs in a spindle as a backup actually sounds incredibly practical considering most of us have hundreds of burned discs in binders and spindles.

[fast]

However a 10 pack of Dual Layer Blurays is $150. I can get a terabyte sata drive for $90 on Newegg right now. And as long as you powercycle it every couple months you are good.

[elvis]

For the rest of us suckers paying $90 a month for 50GB a month of limited quota in other parts of the world thanks to zero competition in our local area

You better thank God, I pay $100+ for a 4mb/s DSL with 12GB LIMIT!!!
25 GB is luxury to me!

We had a friend from New Zealand come and visit us this week, and she revealed the same sort of figures when she described her local internet plans.

She was an avid PC RTS gamer, and lamented at the fact that she can't play online simply because it's just way too expensive.

It's pretty sad that these days, Internet access is still only available to the very wealthy in certain parts of the world.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

However a 10 pack of Dual Layer Blurays is $150. I can get a terabyte sata drive for $90 on Newegg right now. And as long as you powercycle it every couple months you are good.

True, but history says those 10 packs will be $30-$40 or less by this time next year.

[fast]

Normally I would agree with you and that would be the end of it, but harddrives have plummeted in price over the past few years and they are only getting bigger. I mean if you catch a sale you can pickup a terabyte for $50-60 easy, Ive seen it as low as $40.

[dsheinem]

Those of you who are suggesting that there is little jump in quality between DVD and Blu-Ray must really have poor eyes, or else you are watching everything on a small screen. On my 55" HDTV, the difference between upscaled DVD and Blu-Ray is astounding. If you're watching something in the 30" and under range (like a computer monitor), maybe the difference is less remarkable.

And, on another point, most old movies benefit even more from the new format than not. The Blu-Rays of Blade Runner, 2001, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Shining, and several other older films are ones that I usually use to show friends when they ask if they should consider upgrading. These films are all probably better showcases for what the technology brings to the table than something like Spiderman 3. Check out some reviews of catalog films on http://www.highdefdigest.com/.

For further reading, here's a good NYT article written by a Blu-Ray skeptic: http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/200 ... -view-off/ and here's a CNET quickie: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-13817_7-64 ... ent;rb_mtx

I've been on a Blu-Ray purchasing kick of late, so forgive the apostolicism cum self-justification. That said, it is worth educating yourself about the technology before making claims about old films, necessary disc size, etc.

[dsheinem]

Don't forget that double layer Blu-Rays can hold around 100GB of data so factoring that 1000GB's = 1 Terabyte somewhere around 10 discs in a spindle as a backup actually sounds incredibly practical considering most of us have hundreds of burned discs in binders and spindles.

Actually, Pioneer has shown Blu-Rays that go to 400GB (http://digitimes.com/news/a20081201PD212.html). These would be backwards compatible with all existing systems - and there's ongoing efforts in the industry to push capacity even higher.

There's also these hybrid discs to consider, should they catch on: http://www.slashgear.com/worlds-first-h ... n-1927170/

[Octopod]

I buy consoles to play games not to watch movies on. Im another that dont give a rats ass about BR.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

To pull this thread back on topic for a sec this illustrates the general public as well as most of the customers that come into GS's feelings, regardless of how incorrect it may be average people generally don't seem to care.

[the7k]

I buy consoles to play games not to watch movies on. Im another that dont give a rats ass about BR.

You don't give a rats ass about the maximum capacity for media going up?

That's the real deal here - 100-400GB games. It might take a while for games to get that massive, but it'll happen at some point.

Remember the PS2? "Oh, I don't care about DVDs - where are the games?" Well, games eventually started taking advantage of DVDs after a while, and we started getting some truly impressive games. I'm willing to bet money it'll happen again - it just may take a while.