Blu-ray Information

What is Blu-ray?
Blu-ray Disc (also known as Blu-ray or BD) is is a next-generation optical computer storage format. It was developed to enable recording , rewriting , and playback of high-definition content, as well as storing large amounts of data. Blu-ray disc burners can be purchased as optical drives for home computers. The name Blu-ray Disc is derived from the blue laser (violet-colored) used to read and write to the disc. Because of the beam's shorter wavelength (405 nanometres), substantially more data can be stored on a Blu-ray Disc than on the DVD format, which uses a red (650 nm) laser.

About the Disc
The disc has the same physical dimensions as standard DVDs and CDs however, Blu-Ray Discs offer much more storage capacity than standard DVDs and represent the next step in media to complement your HDTV. A Blu-ray disc can hold up to 25 GB of high-def data on single layer discs and up to 50 GB with double layer discs which is almost six times the capacity of a two-layer DVD, or ten and a half times that of a single-layer DVD. In addition, the Blu-ray Disc is treated with a special protective hard-coating which is much more resistant to scratches and fingerprints than DVDs or CDs. It is exclusively played in a Blu-ray player , gaming system like the Sony Playstation 3 (PS3) or Blu-ray ROM drives .

About the Format
Much like the evolution from VHS to DVD, the Blu-ray format has received broad support from major entertainment providers, consumer electronics, and personal computer companies as a successor to the current DVD format. Endorsed by the movie studios, Blu-ray is accepted as the prevailing standardised high-def format. It produces a progressive picture image resolution of up to 1920 x 1080, also known as 1080p. In the digital world, picture quality depends on bit rates. For example, DVDs can deliver 8 Megabits per second (Mbps). HDTV broadcasts can reach 10 Mbps. However Blu-ray Disc delivers up to an amazing 48 mbps! It is the best consumer video image quality available today to be used with your high definition plasma , LCD or DLP television display.

Additional Benefits of Blu-ray
Blu-ray represents a revolutionary improvement over DVD in terms of pictures and sound quality, and with advanced interactivity it presents a whole new way to experience movies , games , and music . Blu-ray delivers up to 6 times the video quality of standard definition and has the capacity for a number of high-definition audio encodings like 7.1 audio. The sound you hear is measurably better although having a great home theatre system helps deliver the high quality of blu-ray and turn it into a fantastic movie and entertainment experience.

All that extra disc space means there's room for significantly more content and special features like director's and actor’s commentary, featurettes, the-making-of documentaries, behind the scenes and more (depending on the disc).

With Blu-ray, there's also the possibility for previously unheard-of special features. Games can now be integrated into your movie experience. Picture-in-Picture allows for additional media to play while the movie is running. This can be used for video commentary by directors, or for displaying messages from other viewers through BD-Live.
 
Titles for Blu-Ray
Many new and classic popular movies are being released on blu-ray such as The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor , Sleeping Beauty, Blade Runner, The Ultimate Matrix Collection and Mamma Mia! to name a few.
 
You can now catch up on some of the television episodes and made for TV specials that you missed, or start from the beginning of a whole new TV series that all of your friends have been talking about. What could be better than getting them on high definition? You'll find titles like Band of Brothers, Weeds, When We Left Earth - The NASA Missions (4-Disc Set), Lost and Californication.

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