The Hot Item For Holiday 2008?  High Definition Blu-ray Disc!

 

 

When DVD was invented about 15 years ago, digital video was in its infancy, most companies did not do a good job of even basic MPEG-2 compression and Hollywood was skeptical that the format could work considering how bad CDi (an MPEG-1 format with VHS picture quality) was.  The industry was looking at several high definition configurations, which would work its way up to 12 (!) before the current standards were finally settled on.  Despite attempts to upgrade it, expand it into other formats that failed (DVD-Audio, HD-DVD) and the idea of adding upscaling (where a DVD player tries to make a DVD look Hi Def, but makes the picture look worse!) DVD is just too old to work for the latest High Definition TVs and projectors, which is where the new Blu-ray disc format comes in.

 

It has not been easy to get people to see the best High Definition performance available for several reasons.  Misinformation has ranged from the assumption that DVD was High Def to upscaling DVD players somehow make for good HD viewing, which are highly wrong and shows how bad the picture quality in so much production and playback are just because people were happy to be free of VHS.  The fact that the consumer has such passive or underwhelming expectations is sad and shows how low the bar has been for picture quality all around.

 

The majority of chains that have HDTVs for sale have done an awful job of showing how good HDTV can look, even when they have had Blu-ray players and discs, there has not been optimal calibration of the sets, the proper hook-ups or even devoted home theater sections.  Circuit City for instance made the fatal error of firing the expert people who could have sold more such product (making them like any generic chain) and too many people talking about Blu-ray have not added “disc” to describe what it is, as even now, too many people are asking when the subject comes up “What is Blu-ray?” despite the increase of its visibility in advertising.

 

Then there are those trying to claim cable boxes, satellite boxes or downloads offer so-called “Blu-ray quality” images, which is not so.  They can not do the clean 1080p (1,080 lines of progressive scan High Definition video) Blu-ray delivers in a clean, consistent way.  The sound situation is worse, with those services offering antiquated Dolby Digital at best in most cases, while Blu-ray has multi-channel PCM, DTS and Dolby TrueHD lossless mixes that are far superior.  So with all this, a bad economy and a holiday season with few hits (the fault of a lazy producing environment), Blu-ray has become one of the hot items for those in the know and the more people who see the best discs in action on the best set-ups, the more people want to buy it.  So then price becomes an issue, but how expensive is the format?  Not as bad as some would have you think.

 

Like DVD and predecessor formats (LaserDisc, CD, etc.) you know you can go bonkers spending tons of money on a system and when you add customized home theater options, sure it is going to be expensive, but you also know that you can set up a simple, effective system when costs come down and this season, that is exactly what has happened with Blu-ray.  After several years of cheap DVD players that were not built that well, Blu-ray players have been surfacing in the $150 – 300 range, which is what a better quality DVD player used to cost.  Since they all play all DVDs, trading up to a new machine is like buying an HDTV because your analog TV died and you don’t want to waste your money on a bad investment and something that will not last as long or play as good.

 

So many people have been buying HDTVs just as a status symbol that now, they can finally play something on their sets worthy of their purchase.  Besides all the Blu-ray drives out there in every PlayStation 3 (PS3) videogame machine, even the cheapest Blu-ray player will give you HD performance that annihilates the best DVD player.  It is not like the transition form 12” LaserDisc to DVD where many of the early DVDs looked poor.  PS3s aside, with affordable Blu-ray players and cheaper-than-ever HDTVs and all the sales going on, you can enjoy state-of-the-art High Definition with just about the same money you are already spending on DVDs now.

 

Some titles will be more expensive than others, but if you are new to Blu-ray discs, there are hundreds to choose from and for all the titles you’ve missed, you are guaranteed to find a good few dozen on sale that are your favorites and that would give you plenty to enjoy over the holidays and beyond.  That leaves the only thing standing in anyone’s way seeing Blu-ray in action, so if you have not had the fun of seeing how great they can look, we recommend going out of your way to find a really good home theater store (mom and pop stores or upscale chains) to see the format in action of your local chain stores are still treating the format like any other product.

 

Once you experience how incredible Blu-ray looks and sounds, you’ll understand why we are so happy with the format and what all the raves are about.  For advice on the best discs, you can always visit this site and see just how many great titles are available.  We are adding new Blu-ray reviews just about every day now, so this is only going to expand and expand.  Now you can enjoy it without breaking the bank.