I'd just thought I'd toss in what some think will kill BD is online download. In that case, given bandwidth considerations, I suspect it'll be 720p24. You see this with Vimeo and AppleTV. Hulu is moving in that direction I believe. I don't doubt NetFlix also but their current quality is pretty poor IMHO.

The whole thing is becoming quite complex with
720p24 for download
720p60/p50, 1080i60/i50 for broadcast
1080p24, 1080i60/i50, 720p60/p50, 720p24 for Blu-ray

So no one frame rate / frame size "rules" them all. You can see that 1080p30/p25 is not in any of the above though.

BTW link to Blu-ray video white paper
http://www.blurayjukebox.com/pdfs/2b...2955-13403.pdf

and Blu-ray white papers in general
Blu-ray whitepapers

It's easy enough to deliver on Blu-ray, but to distribute on Blu-ray is out of the question for many. Just to use the Blu-ray trademark will cost thousands, AACS is mandatory and many thousands more. Other licensing fees have to be paid as well.

It just wasn't made for anyone but Hollywood.

Only now, people seem to be realizing this. The bells were tolling for HD DVD yet the public said "Give us Barabas."

I'm in the "first run of 2500 copies" category and at the going rate of around three bucks a copy (includes everything) I don't find Blu-Ray production cost prohibitive. What bothers me is seeing a BD version of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in Wal-Mart for $29.95 and players that are way too expensive to attract mass interest (and let's not even mention the sinking economy).

Damn. I thought the golden age of HD delivery was upon us lesser-bankrolled mortals and now the public is being "sold" the video equivalent of i-Pod.

You are correct Piotr. Thanks for catching that. That will teach me to respond without double-checking the specs.

The conversion from 25p to 50i or 30p to 60i should have very little loss in quality, with a very small penalty to the bit rate. I haven't used DVD Architect. Have you seen any issues with this conversion? Or does the end result look just as good as the original 25p or 30p video?

Tom

I'm converting my 25p to 50i in Vegas (DVDA is much slower - it cannot use multiple core CPU at 100%). This is usually the only recompression I'm doing - at the final render, so no additional loss of quality.

To my eye, the 50i I'm getting looks every pixel as good as the 25p original, as- with the proper setting of the software player and viewing device - it doesn't require deinterlacing (the 50i being in fact 25PsF).

If I am to buy a Blu-Ray palyer, what brand and model do you recommend?

I'm using LG model: HL-DT-ST BD-RE GGW-H20L

It's 6x speed, and has an added bonus of also reading HD DVD, and is quite cheap, too!

Get the Sony PS3, the most future proof and easiest for firmware update along with many other features that it has.