You can post all of the comparisons you want. Fact is, in motion and at proper viewing distance, only videophiles will notice any major difference. (And videophiles, frankly, are full of crap.) The next generation of DVDs will have to offer more than slightly better image quality and support for two extra speakers before people (myself included) will buy it.

Wow...I completely disagree, but not in a rude way. I can personally see a HUGE difference! But I'm also using the top rated 1080p 60" TV on the market, and it's calibrated and hooked up properly (which you would be shocked by how many people do wrong). Anyhow, whether you support blu-ray or not, I still don't support the "Amish" philosophy. "What we have is good enough! Why change it?" That's living in the stone age and denying innovative and/or superior technology and progression. Anytime we can further advance technology, I'm all for it--otherwise we WILL end up like Amish and stagnate and shun advancement (Lol, my family use to be Amish! My Grandpa left the Amish Church--best decision ever!)

asking why we need blu-ray is like asking why we need larger hard drives, and the simple answer is storage.

The larger the media content gets, then the larger media storage we need, other wise if everything just stayed the same, contend wise, as it was with VHS/CD then we wouldn't have to upgrade to anything not even DVD, but this isn't how technology goes, and I for one would certainly not like to live in the dark ages.

The difference to me is actually much bigger than the jump to DVD from VHS :/ After watching a Blu-ray movie on our damn nice 40" Bravia, then going to an upscaled DVD, my world was ruined :( The color is off, the sharpness is nowhere near as nice, the audio takes a massive hit... For movie purpose I almost can't go back, and I'm no videophile.

Then as someone else mentioned it's a massive bump up for games, it's not even comparable. Blu-ray isn't a MUST have thing, but it's here, and I love it. I'm enjoying it very much so in both games and movies, I personally would not be willing to wait for HD downloads to catch up after getting to experience movies now lol.

BR is completely unnecessary, and is a luxary -- DVD was a necessity.

DVD brought to the masses: widescreen, extra features, surround sound, improved quality, relatively low prices for early adopters even at the beginning, ALL NOTICEABLE ON ANY TELEVISION.

BR: a investment minimum of $1000 btw player and TV (a TV that ON PURPOSE displays older content poorly) -- not including a new audio receiver. For ...? Movies are a little sharper, with deeper color. OMG!

And movies still aren't doing anything new interesting w/ extra features yet either, at least until profile 2.0 or whatever. All for $30 per movie that you likely already own or could get crazy cheap.

From playing PC games since the early '90s I learned resolution is really not a big deal. It doesn't magically enhance your enjoyment of a game or product.

 A lot of the uses of DVD (portability, cost, use on multiple TVs in the house) are thrown out the window with blue too. The average person isn't going to shit themselves over nerd shit like BUY THIS BETTER RESOLUTION.

@ GhaleonUnlimited

Honestly both DVD and Blu-Ray are luxury technologies for ordinary consumers, as well as games consoles in general. Or do we need to send PS2s to Africa as soon as possible? The bulk of purpose and usage is plain and simple, entertainment.

What I liked about VCR was that apart from playing movies you could easily record TV broadcastings. This is why I still have a VCR today, my dedicated DVD player however was rendered useless as my PS3 does not only play Blu-Ray movies but also does a better job with playing movie DVDs (now it's just useful for my secondary bedroom TV). Hopefully the PS3 will soon become useful as a DVR, rendering my VCR as good as useless as well.

If anyone here was forced to play PC games at the same resolution than standard non HDTV they would scream murder.
That's why you need HDTV and Blue Ray :P

So when you game on your TV or watch movie they don't look like the stuff you got tired of on your computer 10 years ago....

We don't need blu-ray it is a luxery as everything else. When there are disks comeing soon that will hold 1TB blu-ray will not be as important.

http://www.mempile.com/TeraDisc™+Technology/

This is something we need.

GhaleonUnlimited said: BR is completely unnecessary, and is a luxary -- DVD was a necessity. DVD brought to the masses: widescreen, extra features, surround sound, improved quality, relatively low prices for early adopters even at the beginning, ALL NOTICEABLE ON ANY TELEVISION. BR: a investment minimum of $1000 btw player and TV (a TV that ON PURPOSE displays older content poorly) -- not including a new audio receiver. For ...? Movies are a little sharper, with deeper color. OMG! And movies still aren't doing anything new interesting w/ extra features yet either, at least until profile 2.0 or whatever. All for $30 per movie that you likely already own or could get crazy cheap. From playing PC games since the early '90s I learned resolution is really not a big deal. It doesn't magically enhance your enjoyment of a game or product. A lot of the uses of DVD (portability, cost, use on multiple TVs in the house) are thrown out the window with blue too. The average person isn't going to shit themselves over nerd shit like BUY THIS BETTER RESOLUTION.

 It is a luxury today and now, however it is bound to become as ambiguous as DVD when the prices fall enough. I bought a new HDTV and my problem with it is that there is no HD programming available to watch for a reasonable price. Fast Forward 18 months and the option is there to buy a $99 BR with your new HDTV, you going to choose DVD again? BR will be unnecessary then as it is now, but people will want the quality as they upgrade their TVs.

 

While DVD started the revolution BR is the next logical step in order to keep up with new televisions (until downloads) 

hideo kojima ( creator of mgs) has said that blu ray isnt big enough for mgs4
for its storage capicity to be used completely in such an early stage in its life cycle is quite worrying