Blu-ray Movies: Time for a Full HD Upgrade
Blu-ray movies are the reason why features like Full HD 1080p and even 3D are hot buzzwords for home video today. Blu-ray is essentially a newer technology that is far superior to DVD. First introduced in 2006, we have seen the advent of more and more movies converted to Blu-ray format, followed by the ever-developing supporting hardware equipment such as Blu-ray disc players, HDTVs, and even Blu-ray drives on PCs and laptops that can play Blu-ray movies, or even burn Blu-ray discs. So let us now take a look at how Blu-ray movies are far better than their DVD counterparts.
Though both Blu-ray and DVD discs may look somewhat identical on the outside, Blu-ray movies are most obviously superior in terms of image quality. While DVD movies are capped at a standard definition (SD) resolution of 720 x 480 (480p), Blu-ray movies are capable of Full High-Definition (Full HD) resolution of 1920 x 1080 (1080p). Thus movie images will appear so much sharper and clearer, showing more detailed textures to richer and more vibrant colors. This technology is made possible by the blue laser technology of the Blu-ray disc players, as compared to the red laser of DVD players. Blue has a much shorter wavelength (405nm) than red (650nm), which allows Blu-ray discs to hold over 5 times more information on the same disc area. That is why we now see 25GB single layer discs, and 50GB double-layer discs, as compared to 4.7GB and 8.5GB DVDs for single and double layers respectively. So the additional space stores this higher image quality that you would enjoy when watching Blu-ray films.
Other than image quality, there is also a sharp improvement in audio quality. With a good surround sound hi-fi set that has an AV receiver capable of decoding the HD signals from playing back a Blu-ray movie, two new formats of high-resolution sound known as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio can now be decoded for a new level of audio enjoyment. The sound quality is at par with the studio master, and is typically termed “lossless” which indicates the ability of the sounds to be heard at a quality similar to the original recording without any “loss”.
Blu-ray movies also have some additional special features over DVD, such as an in-movie pop-up menu, and BD-LIVE which allows downloading of new content right from the Blu-ray player itself via Internet access. One of the hottest new advances would be Blu-ray 3D technology, first introduced in 2009. In conjunction with 3D-enabled HDTVs, these are the latest Blu-ray movies that require you to wear those 3D glasses to see special pop-up effects in 3D.
With more and more movies now available on Blu-ray, now would be a good time to adopt this latest format if you haven’t already done so, not to mention the great bargain prices that have been dropping steadily across both Blu-ray discs and the Blu-ray players as well. One good bargain place for new Blu-ray releases is right on Amazon.com itself. Some of the best deals on right now are the latest releases of the extended LOTR trilogy at $49.99, or the complete 6 episodes of Star Wars for $89.99, while most single movies are priced between $8-$25, depending on release date and popularity.
Interestingly enough, the prices of some of the equivalent special-edition DVD sets are not any cheaper, so considering the huge difference in both image and sound quality, it seems more worthwhile to start collecting Blu-ray movies instead, once you have invested in a decent Blu-ray player and HDTV, of which the entry-level models are relatively inexpensive too. Blu-ray movies are eventually going to be the mainstream format replacing DVD, and while it is difficult to measure how ‘future-proof’ Blu-ray is, we can make a good guess that the Full HD image quality that we see would not be getting that much better. Much like what Apple has done on the Retina Display of its iPhone 4, our eyes may not be able to tell the difference in any further improvements over the Full HD in Blu-ray movies.
Click here to get more info on the latest Blu-ray movies.
