Why Blu Ray?

Hello all out there in Media land. Media is a dominating force in our world. Everything has some kind of Media link to it. Newspapers, Radio, Television and Cinema are the main culprits here. It’s a massive industry as I have discovered in my 5 years of studying the subject. I plan to look at elements of the industry. Whether this may be Television, Music or Film. I might have seen a film yesterday and I want to tell you all about it. I might have seen another reality TV show and want to complain to you how much reality is poured down our throats each year. It’s basically a blog like every other blog. We start out hoping to get some kind of recognition and then….. Nothing happens. Hopefully I can be proved wrong in due course of time!

So anyway, the first blog here, I want to talk about the invention of Blu Ray. We all know what Blu Ray is, a disc which supposedly allows films to be in higher definition than a standard DVD. It all sounds like an amazing concept until you look at the image. To the eye, there isn’t really any noticeable difference unless you have a standard image next to it to compare to. Many of us have bought into this thing, hoping our film watching days will be brighter.

What we fail to realise is that the cinema has a much higher resolution than Blu Ray or DVD, as it is showed to us on a film format and not digital. I’m personally waiting for the day when Blu Ray rules all and then they realise not everything can be high definition. For example, Charlie Chaplin movies, made in the early 20th century, surely they can’t be improved anymore. Its silly really. I suppose a consolation would be that Blu Ray players are capable of playing DVDs, which is a bonus. This means I will be able to keep my collection when the Sony based format takes over everything!

Another aspect of a Blu Ray is the size of the disc. I don’t mean the literal size, I mean the amount of information which a single disc can hold. Its something like 25gb as opposed to 4gb on a standard DVD. That is impressive to say the least.

One bug I have found with these discs is the price. WOW, £25 for one film, that is amazing, NOT! I mean, why would someone pay these over the top prizes for the sake of a bigger resolution. For those looking for the same films, can buy the same film on DVD for under £10. Or if you are not fussy, like me, you can pick up a VHS copy in a charity shop somewhere and enjoy. If you want the supposed Blu Ray experience, I guess you could try searching on Ebay. I’ve found loads of cheap Blu Rays to start off my collection, Lethal Weapon anyone?

This brings me to my last point, the cost of the players themselves. I was quite surprised in research that Blu Ray players are rather cheap now. You can pick one up from Currys for under £100. This is impressive as the only way to get Blu Ray at an affordable price previously was the Playstation 3’s capability to play them and that set you back £300 or more. Hopefully these will start to come down in price, and perhaps get smaller. I was amazed that a new one was this little box which would fit nicely in my row of gadgets, unfortunately a budget means a massive great box that takes over the area!

So to round off, I still get out VHS tapes now and again, as I do DVD. I can say I’m perfectly happy with that. But there is something about Blu Ray, which makes me think, what will I get out of it? I have yet to discover this, but I’m sure I will one day! One day I will find a happiness with Blu Ray, hopefully its one day soon!