 Are
you satisfied with DVD? If you are, well and good. But if you can have a
super high resolution picture and uncompressed multichannel sound plus a
host of extra features such as access to online content, will you say
no?
This is the premise behind Blu-ray, the next generation movie/music
and digital content delivery format still in its infancy. A Blu- ray
disc has the same physical dimensions as a CD or a DVD, but can store
five times more info than the latter.
A normal picture is supposed to display 625 lines of resolution, but
they hardly do 315. Yet, many of us are satisfied with that picture. Pop
in a DVD in your player and the picture quality is miles ahead of
broadcast television.
Better still, if you have a quality LCD television marked HD Ready or
Full HD, you can see a High Definition picture comprising 1080 lines.
 At
present, Blu-ray is the only physical format that can provide such a
high-def crystal clear picture. It can also deliver uncompressed 7.1
channel surround sound, all through an all-digital High Definition
Multimedia Interface (HDMI) cable.
Granted, you ought to have a HD ready LCD or plasma telly to watch
Blu-rays, so-called because they use a blue-violet laser instead of a
red one. Before I forget, you need a Blu- ray player to watch Blu-ray
discs.
 No
retailer in Sri Lanka still sells dedicated Blu Ray players as they are
very expensive, but you can pick up a Sony Playstation 3 which can also
double up as a Blu-ray player. Some laptops with built-in Blu-ray drives
are already available in the local market.
Cheaper Blu-ray players are appearing in markets such as the USA and
UK, as are cheaper Blu-ray titles. You will still pay a premium over the
DVD version. It will not be long before stand-alone Blu-ray players hit
our shores. And don’t worry, they can play DVDs, VCDs and CDs as well so
your old collection will not gather dust.
The biggest worry for the Blu-ray camp is whether digital downloads
will obliterate the medium, as iTunes has very nearly done in the audio
stream. But both formats are likely to survive alongside. |
