I guess I have to add my 2 bits:

So far we've covered:

(1) competition (which was between Beta and VHS - laserdisc was like the snotty art-critic uncle sitting in the corner). Does anyone remember when POPULAR MECHANICS was first talking about dvd? I remember telling my friends about this "semi-transparent disc the size of a CD" holding a movie on it... their response was like "yeah right, whatever".

And then it came out (Funny thing is, I've known about the possibilities of a blue-laser reader for 10 years now. In fact, someone at IBM figured a way of using fibre optics to transform a red laser and compress it into a blue laser... about 10+ years ago.... took 'em long enough).

(2) image quality: ahh, BLADE RUNNER comes to mind. Putting it in for the first time on my 27" tv... the expression was always the same: "WOW! That looks WAY better than (vhs)! And it sounds better too!"

Then came that first dvd release of BR, and we said: "WOW! That looks WAY better than (laserdisc)! And it sounds better too!"

And then came the blu-ray release: "WOW! That looks WAY better than (dvd)! And it sounds better too!"

Has anyone been demo-ing THE ROAD WARRIOR for their friends? I can't believe how many times I've watched that on my 65" Toshiba. I think most of the comments went like "HOLY SH**! LOOK AT THE ASPHALT!" Now it's just... well, that looks pretty good... yup. (Sigh) How quickly we get used to things...

(3) problems: isn't it funny how some (like myself) will complain about a $25 blu-ray, when back in the day we were paying $150 (yes, that is 150 one-dollar bills) for just ONE movie.. like SCARFACE or BRAZIL?

And then there's laser rot, where all those wonderful multi-colored lines start showing up in the image due to the lamination starting to come off on the inside of the disc.

I think Babs has something just for this occasion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNEcQS4tXgQ&feature=related
(sniff, sniff...)