So, educate me . . . what is the story with Blu ray
 

I have seen thread titles with it, and now am seeing tv commercials about DVD's with Blu Ray or something.

What is the story? Do I need a new DVD player?

:) http://www.blu-ray.com/info/

buy a ps3 its cheaper than getting most of the blu ray players

blue ray is no good! :1orglaugh

you got awhile there is a format war going on

They are trying to set it up to be the replacement for DVD.

In the most basic terms, it is really just a high capacity DVD. It has so much capacity that they can fit high definition video on it (1080P instead of 480P on regular DVD). I think they hold about 50 GBs.

If you want one now, the smart choice is to buy a PS3. It has about the same quality as the stand alone players, and it is actually cheaper, and you get a game system to boot.

I am waiting for another year to see what happens, as there is a competitor (called HD-DVD). I suspect Blu-ray will eventually dominate the market, but right now it is about even in total sales. Some companies are also making dual-format players, but they cost a fortune.

Guess it is something I don't need . . . . why are some movies on DVD mentioning Blu-ray? Not sure I get it.

They probably say "now available on DVD and blu-ray."

Just means you can buy the regular DVD version or the blu-ray version. They are two separate products. You need a new blu-ray player to play the blu-ray version. They won't play on a regular DVD player.

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are basically the same idea: Higher quality video with more features, like menus that pop up while the movie is still playing, etc. Many studios have already backed Blu-Ray, but I think Blu-Ray has come out and said they will not allow porn on their format (you have to have a Blu-Ray license), which if I am not mistaken was what made VHS win over Beta.

Blu-Ray is also more expensive to produce because you have to get all new equipment, where as with HD-DVD you can upgrade your existing DVD presses to make them.

So right now it's a kind of "wait and see who wins" type of deal.

the thing is the dvd has more comperssion = less quality, than blue ray.. that's the diff . . blue ray hold like 8 gb or something while dvd is 4.8 gb

Retail DVD's store around 9GB of data. Blu-ray stores from 25-50GB (right now) with the potential to hold up to 200GB or so.

beat me to it.

now you know why I'm a photographer . . either way: compression = low quality . . and I know that from being a photographer

no porn allowed on blu ray. with the advent of the internet this might not hurt them as much as it hurt the beta format.

I think HD-DVD will come out on top. Sony screwed up last time (Beta), they'll screw up this time too.

How the hell are they going to enforce that? Or do you mean commercially?

The idea is they'd revoke liscences to encode on the technology for people that print porn on discs.

But that sentiment might be a result of off-the-record whispers, or whatever... maybe it's just the fact that that's esentially what they did with Beta Max (which they also owned the technology on).

There's people out there reporting that Sony doesn't plan on 'banning' porn on blu-ray after all...

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37021

HD-DVD's been out longer. Sony's Blue-Ray's more expensive, but seems to have more of a backing behind it at present.

I dunno... personally, I wouldn't bet on anything Sony puts out. I have several issues with the way they run their company that I won't bother going into here.

Well, maybe I'll go into one of the issues: Sony doesn't exactly smile on our industry - aside from the whole Beta fiasco, they've made it apparant many times over they frown on their products being used for adult-oriented material... why we would expect that to change if we help give them the edge in this technology war is beyond me. Already, several big studios are signing deals for blu-ray production, and it kinda makes me feel we're hanging ourselves in different respects...

if I buy anything for personal use, it'll be an HD-DVD player - at least until a standard is decided.