Get The EBU / CMC Entertainment A/S to release recent Eurovision Song Contests on Blu-ray

Since 2007 the Eurovision Song Contests have been both recorded and broadcast in high definition. Some sources state that the 2006 contest was also recorded in high definition, though it was only broadcast in standard definition. The contests have, though, only ever been available to buy on standard definition DVD (unfortunately, only the 2004 contest onwards) and CD.

I think that the recent contests (all those recorded in high definition) should be released on Blu-ray in high definition (1080/50i) like the broadcasts, particularly since the vast majority of TVs on sale in Europe are either HD-ready or Full HD, with many European consumers owning HDTVs.

I also think the earlier contests should be made available on Blu-ray too. Even the ones recorded in standard definition, since this will:-

A) Allow for better picture and sound quality, since Blu-ray can use much higher bitrates than DVD. They can also be encoded up-scaled to again increase the quality (by storing the SD contests up-scaled, more colour samples and smaller macroblocks can also be used, leading to better PQ) when viewed on modern HDTVs.

B) It will allow multiple contests shot in standard definition to be put onto one Blu-ray disc instead of lots of DVDs.

C) It will allow for use of extra features that Blu-ray supports that DVD doesn't. eg. It will allow for stored playlists of songs for a particular contest or playlists that span multiple contests.