Why should I upgrade to Blu-ray?

Simply put, no other format on the market today delivers on the promises of HDTV the way that Blu-ray does.  Broadcast HD is limited to 720p or 1080i resolution, as compared to the full 1920x1080p of Blu-ray.  Furthermore, cable and satellite HD programming is subject to excessive compression, degrading an already limited picture even further.  And the more HD channels you have, the more each one is compressed.

Even upconverting DVD players, which purport to magically convert your existing DVDs to HD, are no match for Blu-ray.  While such players do use sophisticated video processing to expand DVD’s native resolution (720x480; 345,600 pixels total) up to the resolution of the best modern HDTVs (1920x1080; 2,073,600 pixels), creating convincing HD-like images, they cannot create detail where there is none. At best, they can smooth out the rough edges and fill in the gaps created by expanding the picture to this degree. While this results in an image that’s a marked improvement over unenhanced DVD, it shouldn’t be confused with true high-definition.

Blu-ray, on the other hand, boasts six times the actual detail of DVD. What’s more, many viewers feel that the superior colors and contrasts afforded by the more advanced video codecs employed by Blu-ray are just as significant, if not more so, than the increase in real picture detail.

But don’t think of this as an either/or proposition.  Virtually all Blu-ray players also serve as upconverting DVD players, ensuring that your existing movie DVDs will look as good as they can while you update your collection to Blu-ray one disc at a time, at your own pace.  

Even Blu-ray’s menus and advanced bonus features offer a level of slick functionality and agility impossible with DVD, thanks to a new interactive platform known as Blu-ray Disc Java, or BD-J. With BD-J, instead of being stuck with boring menus that act as mere stopgap between the movie and supplements, BD-J lets you experience menus that pop up over the movie without interrupting playback, as well as bonus features that become a part of the movie-watching experience itself. It also opens the door for games that make the stilted “interactive” experiences of DVD look like Pong, downloadable extras like additional commentaries and movie trailers on Profile 2.0-compliant Blu-ray players, and a whole host of innovative new features as of yet undreamt of by the Blu-ray Disc producers of tomorrow.