I don’t see the need for bluray. Here is why :

1. Bluray can hold a massive amount of information.. we all know that.. but it holds such an odd amount I don’t think it will be of any use. 50 gigabytes. In my work environment rarely is there a need to transfer anything that big. A double layer dvd holds 8 gigs, and more often than not I burn some files to a disc and have 6 gigs remaining, making my yearn for the days when cd-r’s were a plenty. Now, 50 gigs can be a nice storage size if you are doing something like backing up an entire computer system or doing long term storage, but with the proliferation of cheap hard drives there just isn’t a need for the clumsy world of holding onto discs. (Plus your setup costs on a blu ray burner + discs are most likely going to be more expensive)

2. The Entertainment Endgame. The real reason behind blu ray is obviously the entertainment industry. We needed a way to pump out high def awesomeness to our new fancy tv sets and the dvd’s just weren’t cutting it. Now, don’t get me wrong, bluray is still the best way to get your full resolution high def version of mean girls up on that 52-inch piece of bezeled goodness but not for very long.
This plays into my larger argument I have quite a bit with my roommate about the death of physical media. He still buys cd’s so is a few years behind the curve, but for the most part the majority of music sales now come online. For the same price (if not less) you get the music in the convenience of your home, the trade off being you don’t get that album cover to store away in a case somewhere. Erik (roommate) sees this as a problem. The rest of the world seems to have moved on. DVD’s are a little bit different story. A lot of people still love to have the actual disc / sleeve on their mantel or displayed somewhere. There are two reasons for this. 1) the generation that came up with cd’s still buys them. it took another generation to move in, get used to the digital format, and take off with it… 2) consumer level systems that are well priced and easy to use that can replace the dvd disc / player combo don’t exist yet. your gonna have to have a barebones pc or a media center hooked up streaming to your tv. However, this is the interesting part. There are now 2 ways to go : You can grab (like I side) a barebones PC or media center and drop it under your tv. Hook that up to a cheap terabyte NAS and you have a meca of power under your tv. Still slightly advanced for your old mom and pop. OR you can grab a solution, like a Roku, or in my position an XBOX 360, and just plug it in and go.

The Xbox gets a bad rap because of its use as a gaming system (in the minds of the older folk) but it can really be an entertainment powerhouse. Instead of going to the store and buying Wall-E on bluray right now for 20 bucks I can download it, without ever leaving my house, in high definition glory, for 480 Microsoft points (about 5 bucks). Again, the quality of the ‘high-definition’ defined by bluray is more so than the 360, but with the expansion of fiberoptic internet, and super speed connections then the gap in quality will only close. And honestly, it takes a pretty strong video geek to see the difference without them sitting right next to each other. When hard drive sizes increase (and you won’t have to choose what movies to delete when you download your latest flick) and the next generation of players comes out then I think we will see the decline of those physical media sales and the emergence of the fully digital home entertainment center.

(One Note : There are 2 ways to get your movies at home. The downloaded variety or the streaming variety. The Netflix on the 360 streaming is by far one of the coolest things I’ve seen. Its dang near flawless in its execution, and I haven’t hooked up the high def tv to it yet, but the fact there are HD versions is pretty incredible. However, you sacrifice selection obviously with that direction. Then you have to download the new releases. I see a happy medium as the future but the day Netflix opens the rest of their collection to download (not streaming) is the day that physical media dies.)