[Publib] Blu-Ray DVDs [Scanned]

[K.G. Schneider]

What Mary asked was in reference to "considering a proposal to purchase
a small collection of Blu-Ray DVDs."

I'm not entirely sure Blu-Ray will take off within, say, the next year
or two, but I'm not sure it won't. 

In any event, she's not suggesting converting her entire collection to
Blu-Ray overnight. I read "small" as "small," as in, testing the waters,
as in, let's try this, gin up some PR, respond to some user queries,
explore it ourselves, etc. 

It could be a very interesting PR thing -- "library to offer small
collection of Blu-Ray discs" -- and I can see labeling these things very
obviously (light blue clear containers, prominent Blu-Ray logo, alert
these won't play in standard DVD players?). 

Regarding my mixed feelings, I have been comparing Blu-Ray to the VHS to
DVD conversion, which was slow. But I hadn't factored in the Netflix
effect, which didn't apply during the last conversion. If players get
cheap, then the barrier to renting discs will drop, especially if
they're easy to rent/buy.

All very interesting to watch.

K.G. Schneider 


On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:40:08 -0500, "Brian Lind"
<blind at rochester.lib.mn.us> said:
> I wouldn't be so quick to jump into the Blu-Ray pool, if I were you. 
> Even though Blu-Ray finally "won" the format war, so few people have
> Blu-Ray players now that you would be paying a premium for discs in a
> format that few patrons would be able to use.  Most people don't even
> know what a Blu-Ray DVD is (and patrons who check out a Blu-Ray DVD by
> mistake will be very disappointed when it doesn't play in their standard
> DVD player - or for that matter in the recently abandoned Toshiba HD-DVD
> player).  Keep in mind that Blu-Ray players WILL play standard DVDs, so
> it's not as if people who only have Blu-Ray players are losing access to
> movies from standard DVDs.
>  
> New technology woes also make adopting Blu-Ray now a bit iffy.  The
> current Blu-Ray players still need to download additional software
> fixes, and the speed with which Sony (and rival Toshiba) put HDDVDs out
> on the market has meant that there are still many problems with new
> discs.  Until these issues get resolved (perhaps in the next year or
> two), it's probably anyone's guess how well they will hold up and/or
> respond to fixes.
>  
> I would wait a year or two at least.
>   
>  
> Brian J. Lind
> Reference Librarian
> Rochester Public Library
> 101 Second St. SE
> Rochester, MN 55904
> 
> >>> "Mary Logsdon" <mlogsdon at amespubliclibrary.org> 3/11/2008 10:35 AM
> >>>
> 
> Good Morning, We are considering a proposal to purchase a small
> collection of Blu-Ray DVDs but have concerns related to security and
> damage issues. If your library has already taken this step to include
> this new format and you'd like to share what you've learned that would
> be great. The last time we checked with 3M they said they had not tested
> our current security tags with Blu-Ray discs. We've also learned that
> damaged discs can not be run through the buffer machine we use to repair
> damaged DVDs. We'd appreciate any input from the group. Thanks so much!
> Mary LogsdonAmes Public Library515 Douglas Ave.Ames, IA 50010(515)
> 239-5656
>