Phil Cooke

Last year, 2007, I took the HD plunge (as may of you did) with an HD camera and started shooting in High-Def almost exclusively.  But I was still cropping and rendering to standard def DVDs.

Now that Blu-ray is taking the High-Def Disc battle, 2008 will now see the easy and a stable means of distributing your native HD videos.  In recent months, the authoring programs for Blu-ray have either become available or the prices have come down.  My NLE software (I recently upgraded) – Sony Vegas Pro 8 – has the ability to create Blu-ray discs from the timeline (either 20-40 minutes on currently affordable DVD-Rs or 2-4 hours on currently $20-$30 Blu-ray discs burned on a $500 Blu-ray burner - both will play on Blu-ray players or PS3).  This year, we'll also see a higher percentage of computers (PCs and Macs) that have Blu-ray drives.  Hopefully this year we will now see prices come down: Blu-ray burners under $100-200, Blu-ray BD-R and BD-RE disc prices below $10-20, and Blu-ray replication costs more available and closer to DVD replication costs.

With the shut-down of analog TV stations looming and HDTV/Blu-ray hardware prices coming down, there is an easing of economic pressure so consumers will make the easy choice of going HD this year.  I just heard that 50% of Americans now have some form of HDTV or HD monitor in their homes.  I think it would be a big mistake for Christian media companies to ignore distributing in HD.

I remember Christian media companies and churches ignored DVD far too long.  Years ago, we had to have a VCR and DVD player because the Christian stuff was still using VHS.  Let's be in step this time.  Even those of us on a smaller "field" can start affordably small and work up as the market grows.  With all the changes happening at the same time – analog TV stut-down, HDTV lower prices and Blu-ray dominance – this market will see a dramatic growth in 2008.  Have a happy HD new year!

Brian Sinks, IN1ACCORD Productions

I don't believe that blu-ray media will ever become irrelevant. The truth is that it will be  the closest thing to a true HD viewing experience at home. As much as HD looks good over satelite, and even some internet sources, it is still VERY compressed…and people see that. With consumers buying these large cinema style HDTVs they are wanting to have the closest thing to the movie going experience… and until ISPs and Satelite/Cable companies can handle the bandwidth…. the closest thing will be Blu-Ray.

Nikki Finke says it's not quite time to call the match.

Blu-Ray is in and here to stay. Toshiba pulls out of HD-DVD. I told my business partner that this time around Sony we will be the format king. All our business media projects have incorporated Blu-Ray as the media format for video.