Quoting Patsa:

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Say you wait five years and then go blu, you'll want to replace many of the dvds you bought in the meantime. So the extra cost can be had now, or later, it's not going away... 

Five years? You think they're gonna leave us alone for that long? 

I'll bet the replacement for Blu-Ray is already on the drawing boards. 

Anybody know for sure?

Quoting Forget_the_Rest:

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Also, not exactly a replacement but Pioneer have developed a 400GB Blu-ray with I believe 16 layers.

Good grief!!!!

Call it what you will - bottom line is new players, HDTVs, A/V gear, cables, etc. - that is, if the extra space is in anticipation of higher resolution, 3-D, holograms, etc. (oh yeah, now I see you already said that ...)

I've already started buying Blu-ray, despite not owning a Blu-ray player. The reasons:

I intend to buy a Blu-ray player down the track
I have access to Blu-ray ready home theatres
I don't intend to double-dip on new titles

So far I've only grabbed new (to my collection) titles. I'm going to be far more controlled in what I purchase on the new format, and have considered what factors will determine the desire for an upgrade (Superior encode on Blu, letterboxed DVD, favourite films, dark scenes, blockbuster action). Titles like The Dark Knight and Hellboy II: The Golden Army aren't urgent purchases... the home theatre I crash already has these.

Quoting widescreenforever:

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The other options I don't care for when it came to Blu ray or HD DVD was as these points:
1. The start up time till tray ejects is 4 times or even much longer ( It is a essentially like a PC starting up-- till on desktop after all drivers and programs load in).

The PS3 and newer players are much better about this.

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2. If you stop the disc and then go back to 'play'.. you are BACK at the beginning of the movie again.. where conventional DVD's can be stopped and/or  player turned off, /turned on/Played on the next day and you are back at the same page where you left off.

This does work on discs that don't use Java. Some newer Java discs are scripting this functionality in Java as well. But yes, there are many discs where it doesn't work.

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3. Sure the picture is going to be more brighter and sharper but with today's technology and vast picture improvements on an LCD or Plasma monitors the differance between the two discs HiDef/Standard  is over 100% in SRP price.. and only 40% resolution  in picture quality ., math doesn't line up..

Take a look around Amazon. Most Blu-rays are not a huge premium over the DVD release (with the exception of titles that have been available for years on DVD and just came out on Blu-ray). For example" These are the top ten selling Blu-rays right now with prices compared. I used as close to equivalent editions as I could.

1. Ghostbusters: $18.99 vs. $10.99
2. Watchmen: $24.99 vs. $22.99
3. Gran Torino: $24.99 vs. $15.99
4. Quantum of Solace $19.99 vs. $19.99
5. Planet Earth $55.49 vs. $45.49
6. The Boondock Saints $12.99 vs. $11.49
7. Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection: $64.99 Out of print on DVD, but would cost considerably more if you bought it from marketplace.
8. Transformers $19.99 vs. $13.99
9. Casino Royale Special Edition: $14.99 vs. $22.99
10. The Dark Night: $23.99 vs. $20.99

Total on Blu: $216.41 (not count Star Trek). Total on DVD: 184.91. Average premium: 17%

Also, you math is off on resolution. Even if we are only comparing veritcal, 1080 is 125% more than 480. In a two-dimensional comparison, Blu-ray has six times as many pixel per frame as NTSC DVD and five times as many as PAL. It's a far from trivial difference.

I haven't seen a lot of reason yet to convert.  I know it will happen eventually, but for right now my reasoning is
- expense of the player
- expense of the new television to take advantage of the player
- expense of the sound system to take advantage of the player

And, most importantly:
- lack of titles on blu-ray, and estimated continued lack of titles (right now I have a copy of Footlight Parade on order on DVD ... I'm sure that's just around the corner on blu ... not)

The actual expense of blu titles is incidental compared to the expense of the equipment to replace my 32" CRT TV, and to replace my DVD/VHS combo player or my P2 (esp. since I'd have to get one of the P3s that are backwards compatible, since there are no P3 titles I want to play, and the cheapest I've seen those are $450).  I can get a lot of blu titles everyday of the week for $10-$15, but they're all recent movies.

Despite all that, I do own two blu titles (Iron Man and The Dark Knight) with the eventual thought that I will have a player at some juncture. There are a couple of others that I want (especially Planet Earth) but right now the expense of acquiring the equipment to take advantage of blu is simply out of reach.

Quoting Danae Cassandra:

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I haven't seen a lot of reason yet to convert.  I know it will happen eventually, but for right now my reasoning is
- expense of the player
- expense of the new television to take advantage of the player
- expense of the sound system to take advantage of the player

And, most importantly:
- lack of titles on blu-ray, and estimated continued lack of titles (right now I have a copy of Footlight Parade on order on DVD ... I'm sure that's just around the corner on blu ... not)

I'm in a similar situation to you right now. No Blu-ray player, no super-duper sound system and no HD telly. I'm still going for Blu because I figure, apart from the player, the rest can wait. It stops me double-dipping down the track. I can wait for bargains to show up. I suspect there will be a negligible increase in quality even on my current telly, but as I improve components of the setup, things will gradually catch up, and I'll have the best picture and sound possible for whatever equipment I'm running it through. I'll still buy DVDs, but only on titles unlikely to be released on the newer format.

As for the backwards compatability of the PS3 with earlier generations, have you actually checked your games list against the compatability lists online? I found that a lot of my games, despite having some unusual ones, are actually compatable.

Quoting mediadogg:

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Quoting Taro:

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So all in all, I think the positives far outweigh the negatives, provided of course you have the necessary equipment to enjoy the increase in PQ and AQ.

Nice summary. I wonder if most people can really hear the difference between lossless and the other digital sound formats.No matter, might as get the best possible. Thanks for that! 

Even though my current audio system can't handle DTS HD MA or Dolby Digital TrueHD MA, my player converts those to a PCM stream which is then handled by the audio receiver. I personally hear a difference in that certain sounds are clearer and the bass tends to have more kick to it.

But as mentioned, I think for the Audio and Video quality, it really depends on the equipment you have. The increased quality is there, encoded on the disc. To bring it out, you need not only a BD player but also the necessary equipment to handle that data. In my case, I already had my HD TV and audio setup so getting a BD player was a no-brainer.

Still, I'll need to upgrade my audio system to get the full effect of the increased audio resolution, maybe even go to a 7.1 system instead of a 5.1 (although not that many 7.1 tracks are out there for the time being)

Quoting Pantheon:

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The picture and sound is incredible and I don't think I'll be buying any more movies on DVD from now on.

I had the same reaction. Since jumping to blu, I haven't bought a single DVD anymore.

Regarding TV shows, there are two shows I've bought on Blu's that IMHO are worth the upgrade:
- LOST: audio and picture quality take a serious jump up over SD version. Never have I seen the island's nature so lush, green and detailed. If there is one TV show worth having on Blu, it's that one.
- Heroes: not as eye-popping as LOST, but I still found the picture to be better than upscaled SD. There's a thin grain layer that gives a filmic effet on the picture and I see details I didn't see on SD, such as certain facial traits (in some shots, I even see the pores in the skin). However, it depends from shot to shot: some are noticeably better, some are just a bit above upscaled SD. Still, overall the discs look better than even the 720p HD broadcast.

Both shows also take advantage of the extra features Blu-ray offers with nice PiP tracks. I'm rewatching Heroes season 1 now with the PiP track and it offers some nice additional insight on the series: character profiles pop up, zoom-ins on certain parts of Isaac Mendez's paintings, hints, info on the Company, etc

My reaction to Blu-vs-DVD was pretty much like my reaction to wide screen-vs-full screen.  Once you see the improvement, you can't unsee it.