Dec 17 2008
Why You Need Blu-Ray
Tim Falletti
I was having a conversation with a fellow coworker today, and he asked if he should put a Blu-ray player on his Christmas wish list. I immediately said yes, and actually was amazed he hadn’t had one yet. His reasoning behind not making the switch, was because he wasn’t educated on why Blu-ray is, “so cool”. Then I realized that many other people probably share the same sentiments. Why is Blu-ray so cool? While the simple answer to that question is that Blu-ray looks better, there are many other reasons to really think about installing one of these bad boys in your home entertainment system.
Let’s face it. We live in the High Definition era of entertainment. A few years back, those nifty flat panel HDTV’s were all the rage. I think it was more for the decoration aspect than it was for the high definition aspect because not many folks had any clue what the potential for television viewing was with high def……until you actually saw your first football game in HD.
Let’s get the technical jargon of high def out of the way first so you know what I am talking about. What are all those crazy numbers the HDTV companies throw around? 720 i…1080p…? What the heck do those mean? Well it’s actually very simple. Let’s pretend that your HDTV is turned off. Now picture 720 horizontal lines making up that black screen you are staring at. Now imagine 1080. When your television is set at 720p, the satellite or cable company will signal your television, telling it, “Show 720 horizontal lines 1/30th of a second to make up the image you are watching.” The “P” means you are watching it progressively. A new frame progresses every 1/30th of a second. So it’s kind of like one of those flip book cartoons where you turn the pages really fast and it moves. Now, let’s say the satellite that is beaming the newest episode of The Office to your television is doing it at 1080i. 1080 lines across your television, now at 1/60th of a second, except this time the images are interlaced. (That’s where the “I” comes in). Interlaced meaning instead of that flip book cartoon changing pictures, it is oozing them together faster so that your brain picks up on it. Most sport broadcasts do not use interlaced, because watching a 100 mile an hour fast ball interlaced would be all weird. They use progressive. Flip book cartoon.
Ok so now you know what the heck those numbers mean. So where does Blu-ray come into play in all of this? A standard DVD (Or SD for short) is roughly 420p. 420 lines progressively making up that picture you are watching. A Blu-ray DVD (or BD for short) can go up to 1080p. What that means for you, is that all the colors will be more vivid, the picture more crisp, and the viewing experience much more pleasurable.
Ok so that just sums up the “it looks better” excuse. Why should you still reach into your hard earned money and buy one if the excuse is “it looks better”? Well, assuming you do in fact own an HDTV, and you watch movies on regular DVD, you are basically telling your awesome TV to sit back and relax and not strain yourself. You are not using your television to its full potential. It’s like buying a treadmill after New Year’s Eve, using it twice, and letting it collect dust. There’s no point to it sitting there taking up space. Put it in the attic.
I won’t get too much into the sound of Blu-ray because the sound is far superior to regular DVD much like the picture is. Your listening experience will change much like it did when you first bought that surround sound system years ago. It’s a whole new listening experience with Blu-ray.
Blu-ray prices have dropped significantly the last two months, and you can find a really good one from 120-200 bucks now. The Blu-ray discs themselves are competitive with those 2 disc special edition regular DVD’s that come out too. In fact, you can find great Blu-ray discs now for 20 bucks and under.
So what’s your excuse now? You don’t want to replace your regular DVD’s with Blu-ray? You don’t have to! The Blu-ray will rescale your regular DVD’s so they look better. They won’t make them Blu-ray quality, but you still don’t have to replace them unless you want to. (I personally only replaced my all-time favorites).
While Blu-ray may not be the replacement for DVD much like DVD was for the VCR, it is the future of the home movie. With great holiday numbers, the Blu-ray is here to stay. So go out and get one already….oh and make sure the first Blu-ray you buy is The Dark Knight. Report back when your mind is blown.
