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Turning the airwaves blue

Blu-Ray is quickly becoming the preferred format for movie buffs.

Blu-Ray discs, developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association comprising the world’s leading consumer electronics firm, can hold more than five times the information of a standard DVD thus delivering a higher quality picture and sound while leaving far more room for special features than a standard DVD.

A Blu-Ray disc can hold up to 25 Gigabytes of data, while a dual layer (DL) Blu-Ray disc can hold twice that although Pioneer has recently multiplied the storage capacity of one Blu-Ray disc to a whopping 500GB by using 20 layer discs.

DVD VS BLU-RAY PLAYERS

The difference between a standard DVD player and Blu-Ray player is delivered through a tighter focused reading and writing laser which is blue instead of the red laser used in a standard CD and DVD player. The blue laser has a shorter wavelength than a red laser which makes focusing the laser spot with greater precision possible and allows data to be packed more tightly and stored in less space. They also work slightly different to DVD players, thanks to different audio and video software, or codecs, which enable the player to write and read a Blu-Ray disc.

The difference in picture quality between a standard DVD and a Blu-Ray disc is noticeable to the human eye. It’s as different as watching the same film on the old VHS video format compared to the now standard DVD format. The good thing about upgrading from DVD to Blu-Ray is that Blu-Ray players will play standard DVDs and convert the DVD picture to high definition. It’s not as good as buying the same film on a Blu-Ray disc, but far better than watching it on standard DVD. However, there’s not a lot of point in upgrading to a Blu-Ray player unless you have a high definition (HD) television which delivers better picture and sound quality.

THEY COST MORE, BUT ARE WORTH IT

Blu-Ray players are more expensive than their DVD counterparts, because of their extra capabilities, retailing for a couple of hundred dollars for a basic player to around $1500 for one able to play off the shelf discs and record high definition television.

If you are buying a new system from scratch a Blu-Ray player, with a high definition television, is definitely the way to go. If you want high definition in your recordings a top of the range Blu-Ray player/recorder is a good idea, but if you are unlikely to record television and just want to watch commercially pre-recorded releases a standard player is sufficient.

Blu-Ray player/recorders can also be fitted in personal computers, either as a primary optical disc drive, if they have recording abilities, or a secondary drive, for watching Blu-Ray movies on a media centre machine. As Pioneer’s experiments trickle through to the market, and 500GB Blu-Ray discs become affordable, it may soon be possible to back a personal computer’s entire hard disc drive up on one Blu-Ray disc.