It's an old trick used by the film distribution companies to keep a steady flow of cash coming in by re-releasing old films, and each time in a different way, whether it be in the VHS days of suddenly discovering some new footage and releasing longer or directors cuts, or the more modern way of an improved picture and more extras. When a new format come along, like Blu-ray it give a whole new life to old films, just askGeorge Lucas, he's made a mint from the idea.

Studios are now suggesting that with some of the older films it isn't financially viable to re-release them again on Blue-ray, as Bill Hunt from The Digital Bits website writes in his daily “My Two Cents” column on his site.

It seems that the public these days expecting so much from High Definition that the amount of time and money spent on the disk production doesn't justify the return resulting in many a catalogue title maybe never seeing a release in high definition.

I think many of us are in this situation, you bought the VHS version of your favourite film say, The Breakfast Club. That version cant be played with your current hardware (who has a VHS player anymore?) so you bought the DVD version and enjoy it over and over again, the pictures as crisp today as the day it was bought. You now decide to buy an HDTV and Blu-ray player and find the Blu-ray version of the film, but is it really worth another purchase when your current disk will still play in your new player, and maybe even improve it?

It's an old argument, and when it comes to big Hollywood blockbuster a really good HD remastered transfer will make a huge difference, and I as much as anyone else will be lining the pockets of Lucasfilms when the virtually announced Star Wars Blu-ray films are released, but relatively speaking the list of film I need in HD is probably quite small, although my Blu-ray collection is growing at an alarming rate.