Don’t be blue, we have blu-ray

Dan drooled over Blu-ray first, Sallie just commented in Italics. 

Blu-ray I believe is French for “Looks better than real life.” I’m not even joking, some of these movies, I take my glasses off and they adjust for me. 

Blu-ray and HD DVD were in a short-lived war. Microsoft was pulling for the HD DVD whereas Sony wanted Blu-ray. 

Here’s the breakdown. A 3 ½ inch floppy hold about 240 MB (megabytes) of information. A CD ROM holds about 1,047 MB worth of information. Then an average DVD holds about 4,700 MB worth of information. The main competitor of Blu-ray, HD DVD, packed on a whopping 30720 MB worth of information. Still following? Boring I know. 

None of this actually matters that much. But the pictures sure are purdy.

Then there’s the Blu-ray. This disgusting piece of technology holds 25 GB, or for those without a converter (or any idea what a byte is) that is 25600 MB. That means, one Blu-ray disk can hold as much information as 106.67 floppy disks. That’s a lot of floppy!

And Dan loooooves his floppy.

So rational people argued that there is nothing that is going to be able to fill a Blu-ray for many years to come and we should just go with the cheaper option of the HD DVD. 

Screw those people. The masses want bigger and better even if we can’t use it. Hell yeah give me a Terabyte of hard drive. That car can go 150 mph, I’ll take it. This meal comes with two sides! Pack ‘em on.  

We’re Americans. We love the best, brightest, and largest. Microsoft should’ve known that because they’re Americans! 

What does this mean? Well for those of us that have plunged into the High Definition Television market and have a Blu-ray player, that means we are getting ridiculous amounts of data shoved on one disk for our movie enjoyment. We get better picture, better sound, and more features. Hell, sometimes they throw in a copy of the normal DVD with the Blu-ray just so you can compare how crappy you never knew your life was before. 

A few days after we got our blu-ray player and first few discs, I also got new glasses. My mind was doubly blown by the clarity.

Now that’s not saying by default every Blu-ray you have looks better than the original. It all depends on what cameras were used when filming, how large the budget was, etc. 

For instance, 28 Days Later is one of my favorite horror movies of all time. We bought the Blu-ray hoping to see high definition blood and guts and Britons on our screen. Instead, it looked exactly how it did on DVD because this movie was filmed on an Indie budget, with just OK cameras. 

But then you get a gem like The Dark Knight or I Am Legend and you swear that you are cruising through the empty streets of New York with Will Smith and his dog. 

My personal favorite, so far, is the Planet Earth series. The wide shots, expansive scenes and vibrant colors are almost a little too much in high def. I’m constantly saying “is that real?!” whenever I watch a disc. And the animals are cute.

Now the issue is: How long will Blu-ray last. More than likely, within the next five years, the format won’t be supported for movie and will go to full downloads in high definition. I don’t want it to happen because I care about having the hard disk in my hand, but I suppose if the Blu-ray Swan Song must happen, then it will be replaced by bigger and better.  

Check out this blog in five years, when I rant on about how Blu-ray doesn’t look good enough.