I wouldn’t doubt blue ray media being at least as reliable as DVD.

I don’t think the hardware was/is as widespread and I don’t expect blue ray was/is as commonly specified in government contracts, integrated into medical devices, etc.

My primary consideration with all digital media is what will the ecosystem be like in twenty years. How easy will it be to start with only a disk?

Blu-ray drives are in Playstations and Xboxen; if those drives can be cannibalized and used in a computer there will be millions available in the used market. Or you could jailbreak a console and install Linux just to use the drive.

Right now, today, I can just buy a Blu-ray burner at my nearby big box.

In 1997, I could say the same about Zip because Zip drives were everywhere until they weren’t because consumer behavior changed and CD-RW replaced the market.

There are still working Zip drives, but not a terrible many. Running one is only a matter of conjuring up a parallel port or scsi connection. Nevertheless most people who bet on Zip archives have regretted it sooner or later…and probably sooner.

Drives that read CD-R are almost anything that reads DVD or Blu-ray, plus all but the earliest CD drives. There’s not going to be a need to compete with gamers or retro computing enthusiasts.

That’s what I want in an archive strategy based on my experience over almost forty years. For me, archiving is enough of a project without involving jailbreaking a game console.

But that’s me and my bet. Other people have other priorities and I respect that.