hello ...i really want a blu-ray drive on my PC, mostly for backup ...
The only trouble with backing up to Blu-Ray is this; if you damage or lose one Blu-Ray disc, you lose 5 DVDs worth of material, a double layer BR disc, 10 DVDs.
I have a certain disdain and uncertainty about magnetic storage but, the most cost effective solution to bulk storage, is HDD. Fill it up, pull it from the computer, put it back in the antistatic bag, and on to a safe place.
I always hear that people can't tell the difference. I wonder how true that is. I bet if you try and compare HD to SD at Wal-Mart there probably is little difference, likely because walmart has split their component video 40 times to run to all their TVs.
I think though if you gave them a digital cable or a satellite source and showed them composite, svid, component, 720p hdmi, 1080p hdmi, they would be able to tell the difference between every one of them with the exception of maybe component and 720. I think a lot of the "I can't tell the difference" is either from people with really bad eyesight OR victims of poor setups.
The only way that Blu-Ray's 1080P would look better than say, 720P is if the source material were designed and produced for the format in the first place.
You can take an audio recording from the 60s, "digitally remaster" it, then release it on CD. But guess what, it still sounds like it was recorded on a POS magnetic tape recorder from the sixties. Granted that you would not suffer the loses than were interjected by the vinyl record. So, it does sound better, but it surely doesn't sound like it was recorded yesterday either
Blu-Ray is no difference in this respect, if the source sucks, then the disc will suck. Here again, I certainly don't need the expense of BR, to watch DVD transfers of 10 year or more old TV series. DVD will be fine, since all the studio is doing is upconverting the source material in the first place. My DVD player will do that for me, thank you very much, and at 20% of the cost.
The most recent example of "source failure" I can come up with is, "Transformers, Revenge of The Fallen". I saw this in IMAX. Now, I'm pretty sure this movie was never shot in IMAX, just regular digital or film movie format. The net result from the transfer was unsharp, and suffering from vast amounts of rectilinear distortion at the edges of the screen. Micheal Bay seems to think vast amounts of motion blur will eliminate the need for vast amounts of quality digital animation work. He's wrong, so I'm really looking forward to the DVD of this movie, but not so much the Blu-ray.
Stands to reason doesn't it, BLUR in 1080P is still BLUR.
