Blue Ray/HD DVD's ?

[Photographer557]

Can we save pictures to these type DVD's the way we currently save to a DVD or CD?

I guess what I am asking is will a Mac recognize this format?

[Detonate]

Do you mean for back up, or for showing a slideshow in High Def.

I guess really the short answer is yes in both cases... However, showing a slideshow is much more involved as there are few ways to Author Blu-Ray or HD-DVD's at the moment.

However, using them as a storage media just requires a compitable burner and software.

[Photographer557]

Yes, I was referring to there use as a backup medium.

So, how do you know if you have a burner that will work?

Does it take a special burner or will the DVD burner on most computers work?

I guess the other question would be, are they selling blank Blue Ray or HD DVD's yet for us to use?

[Photographer557]

Well, I did a search and it appears that a Blue Ray drive for a Macintosh cost $1,000. The disc themselves are not that expensive but the drive to use them will cost you.

[jeffkohn]

Do macs have USB or just firewire? I'm pretty sure there are USB-based external Blu-Ray burners that sell for about half of that.

[bpjones]

Originally Posted by Photographer557

Yes, I was referring to there use as a backup medium.

So, how do you know if you have a burner that will work?

Does it take a special burner or will the DVD burner on most computers work?

I guess the other question would be, are they selling blank Blue Ray or HD DVD's yet for us to use?

Apple doesn't offer either of these 2 drive formats in their computers yet. Therefore, you would have had to buy something aftermarket to have this capability. It does require a new drive to burn/read this type of disk.

I would say that both of these 2 formats are too new to utilize for a backup/archive solution. In addition, the industry is expecting one of the formats to be the long-term winner, thereby eliminating the other. As I am evaluating backup storage, the last thing I would want would be to have all my backups stored on obsolete disks. I just threw out my last 100MB Iomega Zip disks that were collecting dust in my closet for this same reason.

I'd stick to DVD recordables or dedicated USB/firewire hard drive backup options at this point. Hard drives are so cheap and might be the best option.

[WLPelzmann]

Yes, given the cost of the burners and the disks, along with the uncertainty of the "winner", I've held off on using this as backup alternative to DVDs. Although, the 50 GIG per disk capacity is certainly appealing.

At the moment, I find just getting high capacity external hard drives is the most efficient/cost effective backup option. Sure glad those drive prices have kept dropping!