Blu Ray – A Basic Guide

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The headlines read: “Sony Says Blu Ray will Conquer Half the Market By 2008.” Until now, you may have never have heard of the Blu Ray disc player before. Don’t be alarmed, as it can be grueling to keep up with all the latest technology! The good news is that you didn’t get suckered into buying an HD DVD player that is now obsolete. Here you will learn all of the basics about this new technology so that you can make up your mind as to whether it’s a trend or a necessity for your household.

Blu Ray (BR) is the new format developed for optimal recording, rewriting, playing and storing of high-definition video. The world first learned about the new technology with the release of Sony’s PlayStation3 in November 2006. To make more advanced games, Sony needed a way to “fit in” more data. While the DVDs in your current collection hold 9 GB of information, the Blu Ray discs are able to hold 25-50 GB, making it five times more efficient! Manufacturers like Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp and JVC (to name a few) are using a different type of laser (blue versus the traditional red) to pack more data with better precision.

Several days after the November 2006 release of PS3, Sony offered its first stand alone Blu Ray disc player for $300. Thanks to the new technology, the PlayStation was surpassing its rival, the Xbox360, by selling 13 million units. The Blu Ray 1.0 was your bare bones player, but it lacked ethernet ports and all of the functionality that the superior PS3 machines had. Since November, all the Blu Ray players featuring 1.1-2.0 technology and are BD-Live enabled, meaning that you can link up to the internet to download movie trailers onto the rewritable portion of your Blu Ray disc and play interactive games, as well as receive firmware updates and exclusive downloads of additional bonus material.

So just how popular is the Blu Ray? It’s so popular that market analysts are speculating that Sony may not have the capacity to tackle the demand for the new media! The demand is said to be around 43 million units worldwide, but factories can only handle production for 38 million, and that’s after an upgrade to their facilities. Therefore, you can expect Blu Ray prices to remain high until the supply side catches up with the demand. Prices on the initial players range from $400 to $1,000 but the subsequent versions are expected to be offered for around $300.