DVD Blu-Ray Discs

Welcome to DVD Blu-Ray

Blu-Ray Discs, or BDs, are gradually seeping their way into the consumer consciousness of the general public, and nowadays it might seem like the prefix 'blue' is applied willy-nilly like the current obsessions with prefixing any product or service of an electronic nature with 'i' as inspired by Apple with their products and copied by every other firm under the sun. However, Blu-Ray's earn their name from the purple-blue colour of the laser which reads data from and burns data to them, and other than that most of us won't be able to tell the difference between Blu-Ray, DVD or even a CD because they all exactly the same!.

In part, this is to allow backwards compatibility between new Blu-Ray players and your old DVDs and CDs, and it's because of this that the Blu-Ray players use a blue laser of a much shorter wave length. This shorter wavelength allows loads more data to be stored on a BD than on a DVD. A dual layer BD can hold 50GB of data, whereas an old dual layer DVD could only handle 9GB. That's nearly a six fold increase of capacity, which is why Blu-Ray have been developed as the standard format for high definition, HD video.

Blu-Ray discs are currently the only disc format supporting HD video as they beat off competition from the Toshiba backed HD DVD format back in 2008, and so for the foreseeable future they are only going to increase in availability and popularity, and subsequently decrease in price. Technically speaking this is why Blu-Ray is quickly becoming the next big thing, but at the moment you may be confused by all of the techno jargon surrounding them. Hopefully the next sections should help clear things up a little for you.

Blu-Ray Discs and High Definition Video

You may own or certainly will have seen an HD ready TV, but only a small percentage of the population actually own a device outputting at HD resolutions to make use of the technology in the TV. One way of getting the best out of an HD TV is to hook up a Blu-Ray player via an HDMI cable - High Definition Multimedia Interface - and pop in a Blu-Ray movie. Most new releases are being sold on both DVD and Blu-Ray, but what are the differences between the two?

Well, a standard DVD will output video at a resolution of 720x576 which is fine for old CRT TVs, but on an HD TV this is just not good enough. Blu-Ray's can output video at full HD of 1080p, which refers to an image made up of over 2 million pixels at a resolution of 1920x1080. That means that a Blu-Ray DVD can have nearly 4 times the picture detail of a DVD movie, and it's hard to explain the difference using dry technical statistics, but when you see it you'll really be blown away. You can stick your head as close as you like to an HD TV playing a Blu-Ray DVD and still get a clear, crisp, beautiful picture. That is the power of HD combined with the impressive capacity of Blu-Ray, and because HD video takes up so much more space than SD video - Standard Definition - the Blu-Ray disc is the only format that can hold full movies in HD.

Bear in mind that HD TVs come in different shapes and sizes and with different maximum resolutions, and it's only the largest most expensive examples that will be able to display full HD. However, even the smallest HD TV will give a considerably clearer, more defined picture than an old CRT TV.

Blu-Ray DVD Movies

Blu-Ray is really going to become the movie lovers' format, as there are currently over 1000 dvd titles already available in the UK and this number is going to keep on increasing as it's not just the current releases that are getting a Blu-Ray release. Thousands of old films are being re-scanned and digitally restored to be viewed in HD and made available on DVD, which means that no one in history will have seen the films in as much detail as we are able to see them today. This is all thanks to BD technology. BDs are also made available with 24p technology, which is really great for movie buffs provided that you have a TV capable of displaying this. What 24p refers to is the capability to watch a movie from a Blu-Ray DVD at 24 frames per second, which is the standard speed that movies are shot at. Traditional DVD movies are displayed at around 30fps, frames per second, which means that the film cannot be replicated and shown exactly as it was intended, but with Blu-Ray 24p technology this is possible and will give you the most accurate, cinematic playback possible.

Blu-Ray and Gaming

The Blu-Ray disc is also becoming the new standard for gaming, with Sony's PS3 console utilising Blu-Rays for all of their software, and the console even coming with the capability to play a Blu-Ray DVD which is great if you don't want to shell out for a separate player. Blu-Rays allow high definition to come into the console gaming market, as the large capacity allows far more detailed textures, character models and effects to be included by games designers.

The best way to see the difference would be to compare the same titles released both on PS3 and Nintendo Wii, as the Wii is a lot less powerful and relies on SD DVD technology and lower resolution output. Soon Blu-Ray drives are going to be available in your home PC or laptop on a widespread basis, and software is going to be released in Blu-Ray format rather than DVD. This is because some programs, particularly new games, would require multiple DVDs to hold all of the information required. However, with the large capacity of the Blu-Ray disc this problem is solved.

All of this amounts to the fact that sooner or later you are going to have to move onto Blu-Ray technology, whether it's with a Blu-Ray drive in your PC or a player in your living room or console, and the more prepared you are the easier the transition is going to be. The good news however is that the technology is superb.