What Would I Be Able To Record on a Blu-ray Disc Recorder?

Question: What Would I Be Able To Record on a Blu-ray Disc Recorder?

NOTICE: HD-DVD is now officially discontinued. However, information on HD-DVD, and its comparison to Blu-ray, is still contained in this article for historical purposes, as well as the fact that there are still many HD-DVD player owners, and HD-DVD players and discs will continue to be sold and traded on the secondary market for some time.

Answer: You can (or will be able to, if such units become available in the U.S. market), record anything on a Blu-ray Disc recorder (Since HD-DVD is now discontinued new HD-DVD recorders are not available) that you can on a DVD recorder or VCR, only at much higher quality than current technology allows, provided your source material is of good quality (VHS will still look like VHS!).

However, there is no indication that even if Blu-ray Disc recorders would be commonly available in the U.S. for consumers, that they would have the ability to record HDTV programs via traditional over-the-air, cable, or satellite sources. This is due to the increased use of copy-protection for TV programming that now currently restricts some DVD recording. This would be extended into Blu-ray recording as well.

Unlike Japan and select other countries where Blu-ray Disc recorders are widely available and can be used to record high definition TV content, if Blu-ray Disc recorders became commonly available in the U.S., they would most likely be restricted to recording self-generated high def video content, such as from camcorders and digital Still cameras, or making copies of non-protected video content from home recorded VHS tapes, and home recorded DVDs/Blu-ray Discs.

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