Ever since Blu-ray won the format war, much has been said about Blu-ray discs. So, what exactly is a Blu-ray disc? It is nothing but an optical disc storage medium, which helps you record, rewrite, or playback high-definition video. It is called a Blu-ray disc because it uses a blue laser to read the disc. It was originally designed, to replace the standard DVD format and was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association, a consortium of makers of consumer electronics, computer hardware, and motion pictures.
You can save large amounts of data than traditional DVDs. A single-layer Blu-ray disc can store up to 25 GB and a dual-layer disc can store 50 GB. The Blu-ray disc format can support multi-layer discs. You can fit about 9 hours of high-definition (HD) video and about 23 hours of standard-definition (SD) on a 50 GB disc.
Blu-ray disc players differs from a normal DVD player mainly in their ability to output video in high-definition format. They enable playback, recording, and rewriting of HD in all of the HD resolutions, including 1080p. All of the Blu-ray disc players are backwards compatible with DVD and will support upscaling of DVDs to 1080p/1080i. So you will be able to watch your old DVD collection.
In addition to all these, a Blu-ray disc player has a number of other advantages as well. With a Bonus View player (AKA profile 1.1) you can watch picture in picture commentary seeing bonus and making of content with out ever leaving the movie. Though an Internet connection is not needed for playback of Blu-ray movies, having a BD Live capable player (AKA profile 2.0) will give you access to extra features such as downloading bonus content, web browsing, or watching trailers. Some manufacturers is are coming up with Netflix-streaming Blu-ray disc players today. So if you are a Netflix subscriber you can stream movies from the Netflix film library. Not only this, you can also access YouTube and Pandora content without using a PC. Most discs have HD audio as well, high resolution audio playback that is equal to the studio masters.
