Blu-ray sales are soaring as prices starts to come down and as more people get HD ready TV's it look like there will be a day when it's the dominant format, taking over from DVD.

A bold statement? Many people never thought that DVD would take over from the might of VHS and that was a harder sell in the first place, at least with Blu-ray when you upgrade your player you can still watch all your DVDs, and they will probably look better with a good player with upscaling.

Sales for Blu-ray are increasing fast, the latest figures for the US show that in the first quarter of 2010 (January � March) there was a 68.5% year on year increase amounting to over $330 million in Blu-ray sales.

Blu-ray accounted for 12.3% of packaged media in the same quarter (packaged media meaning not digital distribution) which is a big increase on the 7% from this time last year.

It looks like Blu-ray will be here to stay in the immediate future at least, Sony must be happy, as should the future of the Playstation 3, its a decent and affordable player that also has the added bonus of being able to play games!

The big electronical consumer show for the year is just wrapping up in Las Vegas, Nevada and the story of the year for home cinema is the big push from electrical companies like Samsung and LG for 3D television.

3D hit the multiplexes big time in 2009 with film studios like Disney and Fox releasing big budget 3D movies like Up and the Billion dollar plus grossing Avatar. The next natural step for 3D technology is the home market, and the hardware manufactureres were there to demo this is force.

Blu-ray and high definition is certainly the right media for picture clarity to make 3D in the home a reality and with no new video format to push on the consumer this year, and also true High Definition 1080p TV's becoming mainstream 3D is the next technology being pushed on us.

There is a problem with 3D that is being asked by many, is it a gimmick? Or can this really be a serious contender for the next big thing in the home? The big problem with 3D is that you need glasses to enjoy the effect, and for a 2hour+ movie this can be a strain on the eyes.

With 3D television the like of Samsung are discussion having 3D broadcast for normal TV programs, but can you really see whole families sitting down for an evenings entertainment wearing 3D specs, and how much are these specs going to be? For a family of 4 this could get expensive, which means were into a niche market now, and to make money from 3D it has to be marketed to the mainstream.

Cost again is where there is a big problem, the hardware companies want us to upgrade all our home entertainment equipment once more for 3D. We willingly did this for DVD because we could see the advantage. We were less willing but again we did it for high def because we could see the advantage, but for 3D, where is the advantage, why should we buy new TV's and players to sit in our houses wearing a pair of silly glasses?

Personally I think there is a place for 3D in the home, but it's for children to enjoy movies like Up on their PS3 with a TV in their own rooms, or the couple sitting down for a couple of hours watching Avatar on a Saturday night, not for television broadcasts for a whole evening, I don't want, or need, Eastenders or Jonathan Ross in 3D!

Moving on the other big thing at CES was the bigger and bigger screen on the TV's that are getting thinner and thinner. There was evidence of OLED but this generally for the smaller screen devices, the bigger sets were generally LCD, and very very thin and light.

There is a bit of controversy circulating around the internet that early adopters of blu-ray disks will lack features of future Blu-ray disks, and although this is true some claims are being made that the early players will not play future disks.

Although the former statement is true, feature on some future disks will not be accessible on certain players, the latter is simply not true.

Lets put this into context, Blu-ray players have a profile, 1.0, 1.1 and in the near future 2.0. Features are categorised in these profiles so for example picture in picture on future disks are part of profile 1.1. If you have an early player that is only capable of 1.0 you will be able to play a 1.1 disk and get the full experience but you wont be able to access the picture in picture feature.

What impact does this have on the current blu-ray player owners? It seems for a majority it will have little impact. One of the reasons why early players are not future proof is that they cannot connect to the internet and so cant be upgraded, this is where the most popular Blu-ray player sold to date has the advantage.

By quite a large margin the best selling player with the largest install base is the Playstation 3 and this is a wireless device which connects to the internet no problem and has already been upgraded to profile 1.1 and the upgrade to 2.0 is just around the corner.

Good news in all this is that one of the standards being introduced for profile 2.0 is the ability to connect to the internet which means that any future upgrades wont be a problem.

If you have been a little bit of an early adopter and you bought a player after November last year then you are probably already set and any player bought then or after that date had to be at least profile 1.1. If you bought one before then just remember you can still watch the film without any loss of picture.

Early adopter generally know that by being the first person on the street to have the latest technology they will probably have an out dated device quicker than the guy next door who waited 2 years before taking the plunge.