I think its going to be at least a few years before it becomes affordable [by that I mean sub 1000 dollar range]. But DVD-/+RW is hardly a fiasco. I have my NEC 1300 drive, got it for 150, now its like 99 bucks at newegg.com. It burns everything without a hickup. I love the damn thing, just make sure to get decent media or else it wont play in certain stand-alone players somtimes. Also go here....
To me, blue laser is as close to vaporware as anything.
When i was in school 8 years ago, i remember reading magazine articles touting blue lasers.
And people were buying into the hype bigtime, like one guy wasn't going to replace his dead cdrom since blue lasers were "right around the corner".
I'm guessing at least 5 years.
And who knows since dual layer dvd burners are supposed to be coming in mid 2004.
Blue-ray may never see the light as an economical personal storage medium. The DVD Forum chose the violet-laser HD-DVD as the medium for the next generation of DVDs, due in part to its backward compatibility with current DVDs.
You can buy Blu-Ray hardware and media TODAY in Japan, but availability is very scarce elsewhere.