Is home blu ray recording doomed before it ever took off?

Martin68

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I'm not sure if this has been asked before.

is Blu ray recording doomed before it's even become a popular format?

here's why i'm wondering:

I have yet to find blank BD-R's in main stream shops that sell DVD-R-s, this includes Currys and Comet.

I have only ever seen Panasonic branded BDR stand alone recorders for sale, and only in dedicated CE retailers, wheras DVD recorders are sold even in super markets. where's the compertition from other manufacturers?

With more HD chanels on tv now available, but HD recording (copy right)restrictions built in, as in the Panasonic machiens, this makes it un appealing and virtually useless for hd archiving of tv programs.

Also regarding the Panasonic machiens, they only record home recorded hd (camcorder) HD to BDR as long as the avchd file structure is un disturbed, which is useless if you try and edit on a computer the mts file.
there's no connection to stream HD video into these machiens again..useless!

BDR drives are also very rare on computers, even on top spec systems

blank media is still over priced considering how easy it is to make a coaster, the high cost is off putting.

The Bluray format is now about 10 years old but i have yet to see it being used for archiving for the home user.

Is it being doomed?
 
The Bluray format is now about 10 years old but i have yet to see it being used for archiving for the home user.

The DVD format is only 12 years old, so I think you're miles out with your 10 years estimation for Blu Ray. It was only four years ago that Blu Ray and HD DVD were still competing against each other. Blu Ray got the nod from Sony, then 20th Centruy Fox, then Warners, and became the standard for high definition DVD.

And recordable Blu Ray is only a couple of years old - it took a lot longer between DVD commercial discs first being sold and DVD recorders hitting the high street. And even when commercial DVD recorders and computer DVDR drives appeared, the prices charged by high street stores for blank DVDs was ridiculously high. Staples were selling a five pack of DVD+RWs for £25. Whereas you can currently buy twenty blank recordable Blu Ray discs from Amazon for £25.

So, recordable Blu Ray has appeared much quicker than recordable DVD did, there are more set top Blu Ray recorders available in a much shorter time after Blu Ray players appeared than the equivalent with DVD players/recorders, and Blu Ray recordable discs are much cheaper than DVD recordable discs were when they first appeared.

I would say that recordable Blu Ray has a very bright future and has been adopted much faster than recordable DVD did.

Sorry to kick your theory into touch, but I believe that your memory is playing tricks with you and you are not aware of how new DVD technology is, never mind how new Blu Ray technology is, and you also don't remember how long it took DVD recorders to appear after DVD players first hit the street.
 
Am I right in thinking Blu-ray recorders cannot record HD from a Sky HD box? If so then that may be a factor.
 
Am I right in thinking Blu-ray recorders cannot record HD from a Sky HD box? If so then that may be a factor.

Yes you are correct.

This is not an issue of bluray recorders.
It is an issue of limitations deliberately imposed by the film industry to prevent the free movement of HD material.
It is the reason we have the HDMI interface... which was not technically necessary for HD interconnection. It is there primarily as a security interface.

Recorders are not allowed to have HDMI inputs so that they cannot record HD except by certain proscribed methods -such as camcorder HD material via USB or SD card.

May be a factor for what?
 
Am I right in thinking Blu-ray recorders cannot record HD from a Sky HD box? If so then that may be a factor.

Blu Ray recorders cannot record anything that is HDCP (High definition copy protected) and connected via HDMI. And all the subscription high definition channels are HDCP - but the free ones aren't.

So, in answer to your question, no, it is not the Sky HD box which is dictating whether material can or can't be recorded from it. It is the material (and its encryption) which dictates this.

But this is no different to the fact that Sky Box Office transmissions cannot be archived to DVD when connected via scart - because of macrovision copy protection - whilst non-Box Office channels can. Again, it is down to the material which is being copied, not down to the hardware that the material is being played back on.
 
Macrovision can be 'worked' round easily, HDCP is a different kettle of fish.
 
Im patiently waiting for xmas when i can finally unwrap my brand new panasonic bluray recorder/player having been using a ps3 as my bluray source since 2007.

I do know i cant record direct from sky (in HD atleast:mad:) but i am looking forward to seeing how a dedicated player looks to the ps3.

I do however keep reading stories from various sources/people that its not a straight forward case of recoding something from freeview HD then burning it onto a BR disc which is worrying me somewhat because if i cant burn the things i want off onto a disc then really whats the point of BR recorder in the first place?

Im hoping all of this is just people not completely understanding how things work fully and it wont be the potential mine field im hearing about but it does worry me.
 
HDCP and DRM have so blocked the reocrding of HD material here that coupled with low demand and high pricing home blu-ray recording really hasn't taken off here. Even the Panasonic Freesat BD recorder can restrict the recording of HD material to BD based on the DRM associated with the program AIUI, you can be limited to not recording at all or just once to BD, program by program.

It's a bit different in Japan, even years back it was possible to buy a six tuner, four HDMI input, 4 to 8TB HD blu-ray recorder that would record anything and everything to BD, as far as I can tel they don't use HDCP on TV broadcasts in Japan. Sony even made (don't htink it was ever on sale to the public but it was showed off at a few shows) a blu-ray media PC capable of caching 24hrs of every single TV channel broadcast in Japan including HD, 100s of them, as well as recording to HD/BD etc, so it must of had an impressive matrix tuner to simultaneously handle that many channels. Imagine the equivalent of a SKY+HD that cached the last 24hrs of every channel:eek:.
 
Once again the japanese have shown us how to do things properly, we have much to learn from them:lesson:
 
ok so my dates may be well off, time flies so fast lately, it seems like BD has been out for 10 years, ok so even with it being out for only 2 or 3 years, wheres the compertition of set top bluray recorders? why only Panasonic?
I also can't understand regarding the copy right encription being the only reason we can't have an hdmi input, ok so if we can't have an hdmi input, why can we not have a HD analog component input instead? some people like myself want to stream my camcorder footage in real time into a bd recorder instead of messing about with file structures which don't work once altered.

And why is it that HD is so restricted for shareing compared to SD, why were we allowed to record a full tv series in SD with no problems, but on my Panasonic BS750, if i record a full tv series HD onto hdd, i can make 1 BD copy on part of the series but zero bd copies on other episodes, this appears to be a crafty way of preventing us from archiving a full series in hd.

Standard deffinition was regarded as HD after 405 lines, yet broadcasters didn't restrict us recording tv programs onto dvd, so what's the big deal with these restrictions with HD just because the pictures sharper, for tv programs not films.

surely all these restrictions including non copy right self recorded camcorder restrictions makes BD recorders far too limited to be appealing or even usefull for their very purpose, basically not fit for perpose!

I personally think the set top BD recorders days are numbered as it's virtually useless for what it's intended to do with all these restrictions.
 
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Latest Blu-ray recorder in Japan can record 6 HD channels simultaneously on its 3TB hard drive.

That's the way forward!!!

Never gonna' see it in Europe though. Boo.
 
Latest Blu-ray recorder in Japan can record 6 HD channels simultaneously on its 3TB hard drive.

That's the way forward!!!

Never gonna' see it in Europe though. Boo.

AS I said above not even the latest one, practically the very first one available in Japan could do this, even the first day one Japanese Sony BD recorder had 4 tuners, 2 HDMI inputs and 2 outputs and a 1-2TB hard drive option and it's only gone up since.

One reason it happend is the content holders saw an opportunity to limit home archiving and protect their content so as to increase media sales of HD material and took it. Either they didn't think it was worth making the same effort for Japanese langauge material or they knew the Japanese consumer would never put up with it. So you could make the argument it's our fault as the consumers for not boycotting the whole HD format until the DRM went away but like that's going to happen. It can be done though, supposedly wheel clamping is not used in France, they tried it and it became a national duty to vandalise the clamps on sight regardless of whether it was your car being clamped or not, after a couple of weeks they gave up.
 
I assume the answer is not as simple as bringing back a Blu-ray recorder next time I fly back from Tokyo? I assume I wouldn't be able to use it to record from my Sky HD box?
 
Correct, HDCP would prevent it reocrding even if it would accept a 50Hz feed which it may not. Plus of course you would need a suitable voltage converter for the power, the tuners wouldn't work being a different system to ours and you would need to be able to understand Japanese as the manuals/on screen menus etc would probably be Japanese only. They are not eactly cheap either with all the options like large HDs, multiple tuners, and you would get done for Duty and VAT on import too.

You would be better off building or buying a readby made media PC with a BD/DVD writer and the necessary tuners and capture devices.

To record from a Sky HD in HD you would need a HD Fury 2 to strip HDCP and comvert to component, then a Haappauge HDPVR etc to record from component + optical to PC. That or go the route of using a deambox type solution as a decoder with a PC sat tuner. I've often considered it but by the time you factor in cost/incovenience it's easier to just get a Sky+HD box with a larger drive and buy the stuff you want to keep on BD.
 
is Blu ray recording doomed before it's even become a popular format?

blank media is still over priced considering how easy it is to make a coaster, the high cost is off putting.

Is it being doomed?

I'm not sure about doomed but it is being throttled. The excessive cost of blank disks makes it a non-starter for most home users.

I pay £10/100 for DVD discs but the cheapest BR disks on ebay are £90/100. Now, although I can get six times more data on a BR disk, I never need to, so I am not prepared to pay the extra cost [even at 50p for BR disks I would seldom use them].

I remember when films on VHS were £70, they soon dropped to a reasonable price and so will blueray.
 
I've just bought a pack of 25 TDK 50gb 1x6 speed blu-ray discs from Total Blank Media for £79.99.
Works out at £3.20 each, a big initial outlay, but the cheapest I've found so far.

Burnt several so far and no coasters yet.:smashin:
 
How many hrs do you get on a 50GB disc? i ask because i plan to record what i can off the F1 season next yr on the bbc and was wondering i could fit a couple of races on one disc if i copied at HR quality?

Excuse my ignorance, i dont actually get my recorder 'til xmas:thumbsdow:D
 
How many hrs do you get on a 50GB disc? i ask because i plan to record what i can off the F1 season next yr on the bbc and was wondering i could fit a couple of races on one disc if i copied at HR quality?

Excuse my ignorance, i dont actually get my recorder 'til xmas:thumbsdow:D


Roughly 9 hours of HD and 23 of SD.
 
Roughly 9 hours of HD and 23 of SD.

Cheers IAN P thats helped me loads. With some carefull arranging i should be able to get 2 quali/races per disc then all in HD too, sometimes i really love technology:D:D
 
Cheers IAN P thats helped me loads. With some carefull arranging i should be able to get 2 quali/races per disc then all in HD too, sometimes i really love technology:D:D


No problem mate. All the best with the races.:)
 
Just to echo what others have said-give it a chance! Most of the country has only just got access to Freeview HD. There was therefore not much point bringing out Blu-Ray Recorders any sooner. That, the popularity of stand alone PVR's and the current high price of the machines and discs has throttled mass market sales.

When Freeview HD is more popular more manufacturers' will no doubt jump on the bandwagon as they will be more of a market for the things.

Personally, I think the Panasonics are great machines. Ok, thanks to copyright issues the discs only playback on a Panasonic Blu-ray recorder. But the fact is if you record a lot of stuff off TV, a hard drive only PVR will eventually fill up. You can therefore keep your recordings with these machines and the quality is beautiful. Much better than DVD recorders ever were. You can also fit far more on 1 disk than you ever could with DVD, again all at high quality.

They may never become as mainstream as VCR's were, but then DVD recorders weren't either. The real big sell will be if the PC community adopt them as the standard for PC's.
 

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