To even casual technology observers, it’s always been obvious that Blu-Ray is a format designed more for content producers than for consumers, but it’s hard to understand how hostile the Blu-Ray ecosystem is to consumers until you actually own one and try to use it regularly. Turning on my Blu-Ray player is just not as fun as streaming movies via Netflix, or renting them from iTunes. And I say this as one of a dwindling number of consumers who would prefer, on the whole, to own my media on discs rather than as digital files.
What’s amazing about this situation is that the leap from DVD to Blu-Ray shouldn’t have been this complex. The newer format bundles in all sorts of features like bookmarking, inline menu availability and BD Live, which accesses supplemental content over the Internet, that frankly I couldn’t care less about. What I wanted, and what I would be willing to guess most consumers want out of Blu-Ray, is simply better looking home video. That shouldn’t have been hard to do at all, but the business agenda of the entertainment and technology industries stepped in and subverted that simple equation until it became a complex mess. If you haven’t yet made the switch to Blu-Ray, I would urge you to consider carefully before you do.
via Subtraction.com – Blu-Ray Blues. I’ve thought about purchasing a Blu-Ray player but I keep avoiding it due to crap like this. Though with Star Wars coming out on Blu-Ray that is a pretty strong incentive.