I've been having a healthy e-mail exchange with a friend that has been a big fan of Blu-ray from day one.  Though I've tried to discuss the issue with him in the past, he's been blinded by a love of Blu-ray and apparently all things Sony and hasn't seen his purchase of a PS3 and support of the Blu-ray format as something to be disappointed in or ashamed of in anyway.

Now, I should say that ashamed of is more harsh than I intended here, but I'm not sure what other terminology would really apply.  Certainly my friend isn't disappointed in his purchase at all, and he's more than happily championed his preferred format while also having some very obvious buyers remorse and jealousy at not being able to get certain content that here-to-fore was only available in HD DVD format.

I'll protect the names of the innocent here, but provide a little of the exchange:

Friend:

Well, I guess it was bound to happen...I hope we can still be Blu-Ray
friends

Link to Washington Post article

Myself in reply:

Still won't get you The Matrix trilogy any faster
 
(Remember, the reason that The Matrix and a bunch of other movies haven't been released yet is because the Blu-ray support for Picture-in-Picture and network connectivity wasn't mandated until Profile 2.0 systems hit the streets....)
 
Hopefully Sony and their friends will get moving on getting the Picture-in-Picture stuff and the BD-Live features working so that Warners will make much better releases for everyone to enjoy.
 
That's really my only heartburn (other than the still too high cost for Blu-ray players...) about going from HD DVD to Blu-ray.  I don't want to lose features and extras that add value to the disc.  If that value isn't there then there is absolutely no reason for me to buy a disc based copy of a movie when I can just as easily download it straight to my Xbox 360, or watch from Netflix's servers, or obtain in other means.
 
 
Meanwhile, I just bought -- knowing that HD DVD's death was imminent -- another HD DVD player for the house.  With prices down to the $119 level (at time of purchase, lower now, which means I'll get money back from Amazon for my purchase) even if I just use the player as a nice upconverting DVD player I'll get my money's worth out of it.  But, as it turns out for me, I've been snapping up bargain priced HD DVD discs ( about $15 + shipping, or even lower in a lot of cases) and will get another five free movies just for buying the player, so I'll have a library of about 100 - 120 discs when the format is finally pretty much gone.  Considering how relatively cheap the ones I have bought were, I really haven't spent that much to have a nice collection of hi-def content I can watch when I want.
 
On Blu-ray, well, for the most part I'm going to stick with renting rather than buying.  I'll probably buy a bunch of Disney stuff, as they tend to put out content I like, but other studios won't be making money off of me except for some income from the rental.  I just don't see the reason to buy a bunch of Blu-ray discs that are 'movie only' or are very sparse on extra content.  Unless there is a lot of replay value, it makes more sense to rent rather than buy.

That inspired another exchange of discussion about the topic, more on that in just a bit here.

(ok, formatting work complete above, back to more comments...)

So, I was saying, more on the discussion, and here goes....

Friend:

(edited slightly to remove some personal information on both sides)

you know ... you could've made the right move in the beginning and gone with Blu-ray DVD

My reply:

I did go the right way.  I supported the format that more often provided real value to the consumer.  Sadly too many disc buyers are idiots and they don't care whether or not they get more than just the movie on the disc for their $30 - $35 purchase.  Sorry, but I'm not going to be a party to supporting a format that puts out releases with less features and higher prices, or at least equivalent prices in comparison to an alternative that does offer extras like web based updates and content.
 
I've had the PS3 for quite a while now.  It isn't as convenient and friendly as a movie player because the stupid remote control is only good for controlling the PS3.  It's not universal, doesn't control volume on my TV, won't change the inputs on the TV, etc.  It wouldn't work a home theatre system if I had one, etc.
 
Again, please tell me why that is better?
 
 
Blu-ray has had one thing that it's fans keep saying is better:  it had more storage capacity.  Considering that the storage capacity wasn't used for several releases I have to ask why that was really better???
 
I could link a few more reviews of Blu-ray content if you'd like... like the rip-off job done with a very funny movie: Me, Myself and Irene.  Less bonus features and extra content on the Blu-ray than on the DVD -- what the f is up with that??  And that is but one example, there are many others where you would be buying a Blu-ray disc and find out that the DVD version is better or offered more content.  Like, uh, Live Free or Die Hard -- Unrated version is available on DVD but Blu-ray version is the PG-13 version.  WTF?!!?!?!?)
 
 
The only thing that saved Blu-ray's bacon and really won the format war was Disney.  If Disney was HD DVD instead of Blu-ray, then the war would have gone completely differently.  No Disney = no Pirates of the Carribbean movies, no Cars, no Ratatouille, etc.
 
Without Disney the PS3 would have been a nice gaming system (for people that like the games for it) which played some movies.  With Disney, well, Sony and Disney win the war.
 
 
Sadly I'll be blaming you and pointing right back at you later when Disney and Sony have flipped the switches and turned on some of the most horrible DRM (Digital Rights Management) features known to man.  Remember, we are talking about the evil company that slipped a root kit onto personal computers from music CDs.  There's also FOX who has tried to implement some of the most draconian measures ever known to man when it comes to 'allowing' their customers to use movie content they've paid for.  Between those three lies the reason that DRM was so hiighly important to Blu-ray and why there is 'self updating' DRM builtin the Blu-ray spec.
 
At some point any of those studios could potentially release discs that allow for limited playback of a disc and/or tracks discs so that once you play it on your player it would only play on your player similar to how Apple does stuff with iTunes.  So, the idea of loaning discs to friends?  Gone.
 
The ability to use something like AnyDVD / CloneDVD to make copies of Blu-rays?  hahahahahah That should be fun to keep watching as the studios keep changing things on the fly to keep the people trying to rip their content at bay.
 
 
So, the better format?  Well, that is the one that is shutting down operations.  The format that the public has stupidly bought into because studios like Warners made the decisions for us, not necessarily better for consumers.  Not better at all.

There's a few interesting nuggets in there if you care to learn from them.  Not stuff I probably haven't said in the past, but there just in case.

I really hope my predictions about the DRM crap don't come to pass, but given the studios that were involved in setting the standards for Blu-ray, I fear that the worst in that area is still yet to come.  Sony or FOX will find some way of ruining the experience and we'll all be left to live with it.  We won't like it, but we'll be stuck it much the same way people in the PC world have been 'stuck with' Windows for years and years.  The lemmings bought into it all, lived with it all, called it good, and never cared that they were being screwed over, had features that never came to be because there wasn't any real competition, etc.