http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/12/27/tsutaya-tv-download-hd-to-blu-ray-service-tested/

In the next step for the download-to-own movement, Tsutaya TV offers Japanese viewers the opportunity to download high definition (1080i) videos from Paramount, Warner, NBC Universal or Disney and burn them to a Blu-ray disc to keep permanently. In a trial run, AV Watch downloaded a full length 8.8Gb movie (No Country for Old Men) in 28 minutes over a fiber connection, compared to 120 minutes via ADSL. The magic of Google Translate reveals video quality that was only slightly outpaced by Blu-ray standards, unfortunately accompanied by only a stereo audio soundtrack. The biggest handicap? Equipment incompatibilities, with a burned disc that wouldn't play in a PlayStation 3, we're not sure if the acTVila-based service is ready for prime time, but at the moment we're at loss for a better option that serves both our need for instant gratification and packrat mentality at the same time.

All I have to say is: interesting. I like the idea of this service, however, I find the sound quality and compatibility issue bad.  Sound quality can be fixed but compatibility may be an issue with anti-pirating software (just my guess).

1080i isnt true HD imo

isnt it just 540p with the reflection of the image?

BD is capable of more than 50GB via additional layers, but there's one enormous different - most cheap BD players are only capable of reading dual-layer discs.

That's normally how it always is.

Thus said, you won't see commercial BD releases in any more than dual-layer format.

Actually, according to this article, Pioneer's 16-layer 400GB discs that they announced a month ago will, at most, require a simple firmware upgrade to be compatible with existing players. Also, according to wiki, Hitachi had made a working 4-layer 100GB disc that worked with existing players without requiring any modifications or upgrades.

Note I mentioned "cheap" players. Many cheaper players aren't upgradable.

Apparently, the tech behind this is of the HD-VMD format's tech-family.

With that said, there could be tremendous support, especially if they've improved it as much over HD-VMD as the website seems to claim.

HD-VMD was 5GB per layer (in other words, hardly greater than even DVD). If this is 50GB per layer as it appears to be, then it's a tremendous change.

1080i isnt perfect and neither is stereo sound.. but its a step in the right direction. A developing network architecture and time will provide a better backbone for this kind of service to be widespread.

It appears to be? where did you read that. Give a link, I could not find a single website with the tech details how a conventional red-laser system could read 50G layers..

It specifically says that they can do 100GB per disc. Assuming they're going by the traditional 2 layer maximum, then it's 50GB layers.

Unless they're just working out a way to just do a whole stinking mess of layers.