DVD movies began to be produced in the 1990’s, and they became the dominant home video format sometime around 2000, a position that DVD’s enjoy even today. However, with a storage capacity of only 4.7 Gb, home theater users require discs which can hold high definition content, DVD’s simply do not have the storage capacity to hold all of that data. Therefore, nine leading electronics companies, including Sony, Samsung, and Sharp, began developing a next generation movie format to hold high definition video to usher in a new era of the home theater. With the so called “blue ray” specifications finalized, the average consumer can now afford to watch movies in high definition.

Comparison

The biggest difference between the DVD (digital versatile/video disc) format and the Blue ray format is that DVD players use a red laser to read data while Blue ray players use a blue/violet laser to read data. Basically, the shorter wavelength of the blue/violet laser means that Blue ray discs can store more data in the same amount of space, resulting in a limit of 50 Gb of data as opposed to 4.7 Gb for DVD. However, this has resulted in the players being much more expensive (at least initially) than DVD players, and adoption rates have been slow because of the following reasons (besides cost).

Average consumers have been confused in this recent “format war” between Blue ray and its rival format HD-DVD in the high definition home video market. The market was split nearly 50/50 in the beginning as vast marketing efforts in both areas and an even split in endorsements from large movie studios like Disney and Universal, with only two studios (Warner Bros. And Paramount) supporting both formats, although Warner Bros. will be Blue ray exclusive on May 31, and Paramount is already exclusively HD-DVD. As it currently stands, about 45% of planned and released titles are available on HD-DVD and 70% on Blue ray.

Besides this reason, Blue ray discs have picked up the pace as all of Sony’s PS3s can play Blue ray movies, with millions of consumers using their video game console to play movies on. An HD-DVD drive for Microsoft’s X-Box 360 was only available as an addition while the PS3 had built in support. If you are looking to have a brand new experience with movies where you are immersed into the action, then check out Blue ray players and movies.

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