So I think I'm going to buy a Blu-Ray burner.

Is there anything I need to look out for to make sure I don't make a silly premature decision?

I haven't yet found any variations in speed of BD reading/writing, but may not have looked hard enough.

Is there anything else that I should look out for?

And am I right in assuming that the burner ships with software for burning?

If you sift through old threads or try to doing a search you will find answers to your question.

Don't quote me, but I am pretty sure that the software is separate and expensive.

Nero can burn to blue-ray dvds. You will need Blue-ray DVD authoring program, which Roxio offers DVDit HD for $500.

Jon

Nero can burn to blue-ray dvds. You will need Blue-ray DVD authoring program, which Roxio offers DVDit HD for $500.

Jon

Nero came with my DVD Burner, doesn't it ship with Blu-Ray burners too?

Be careful with blu ray! I'm not sure what the status is now, but previously you could not play home burned blu ray on much other than the PS3. Sony claimed it was a fixable problem with the other players through a firmware upgrade... and that's the last I heard of the subject... Whether that upgrade came or not, I don't know.

Ulead Movie factory 6 has blu ray support but it is not a FULL authored disk. It has the capacity for a BASIC menu system only... if you can't live with that, then you have to pull out the wallet for something a wee bit more expensive like Roxio dvdit pro

be aware that the compatibility issue is for DUAL LAYER BD's and it is indeed a firmware issue...

im just about to pick up my Sony dual layer burner for $1100 AUD and RoxioDVDitHD (seperate)
PS3 shoudlnt have an issue, however, most people watching BD will be on their PC's and PS3's anyway

fact remains, teh authoring tols and the burner itself is nto the issue, its the playback devices which have the issue, in turn, makes it NOT your problem

If you have any Roxio software at all, you can get a special upgrade price of $199 here:

http://www.roxio.com/enu/upgrade_center/dvdit/default.html

When I did this upgrade, I was never even asked for my old serial number, so I don't think that they really pay much attention to what you are upgrading.

Also, some people are having success with certain players using the Blu-ray format burned onto a regular DVD-R. It doesn't seem to work with my PS3, but with some of the regular set top players people are having better luck. Check out what I'm talking about here:

http://forums.support.roxio.com/index.php?showtopic=21074

They are basically writing the files with a lower (but still good looking) bitrate and copying the data to a DVD-R.