Is Blu-Ray actually better?

[TechGeorgie]

Pardon my naivete, but I really want to know what the big fuss is all about concerning blu-ray. I've asked my friends before, but they aren't the most technologically savvy people in the world. I figured that I would ask some techies what they really think about the future of blu-ray and its capabilities. Perhaps I'm blind (or even crazy), but I don't see that much of a difference in picture quality. If anything, I prefer the movie quality of DVD as the colors aren't completely exaggerated and vibrant.

Perhaps its the response speed that's better? I don't know. If someone could fill me in a.k.a dumb it down for someone like myself, I would appreciate it.

[Ian]

Blu-ray has a number of advantages. Along with picture, which everyone seems to focus on, it has better audio as well as interactive features (BD-Live, etc) where content can be continually updated.

[SithTracy]

You should notice a difference when screen sizes creep over 46 inches. That said, I guess in general I am not that impressed with Blu-Ray. I own a few titles... Planet Earth, The Complete Firefly series and Serenity. Got some great online deals. I will likely purchase the extended edition of Lord of The Rings and the original Star Wars series on BD, but for most movies, special effects are a nice addition, it boils down to the story for me. All this hype on 3D being the next big thing in the home... to me it is just covers up Hollywood's lack of story telling. I think they spend too much time re-making older movies of late. Why a Spider-Man reboot now?!!? Red Dawn? Are they serious?!?!?! If they want to re-do something... How about Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code... Hollywood did a poor job with those in my opinion. The Harry Potter recent movies were bad too. One of the best books to file I have seen was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and it was a foreign film and subtitled.... but it was worth it. That said, since I have kids, the Disney Pixar movies do have some good stories, but how many times can we watch those. Off the soap box now!!! LOL

I'm not sure Blu-ray has much more staying power than DVD's or VHS... the next thing will be here before you know it, but it is worthy now if you have an HD system. I still think 3D is a fad and I hope it dies quick.

[SkaarjMaster]

Besides backing up your Blu-Ray movies, why would you need a Blu-Ray burner? I'm guessing discs with more room for more stuff. Anything else? As you can tell, I haven't made the jump to Blu-Ray yet.

[Ian]

Being able to back up 25 or 50GB worth of stuff onto one disc is nice. The price of media is almost down to a level where its more affordable to use Blu-ray than multiple DVD's.

[Dartman]

I got a HDTV in 2005 and used it with a external HD tuner as the early sets either didn't include a HD tuner or charged a lot extra for it. Then I got a HD DVD player when the prices dropped to 100 and finally starting stocking up on movies while the formats were fighting it out.
Finally the supply of cheap HD DVD movies mostly dried up so I got a demo Blu Ray player and the video quality between the two formats was exactly the same except all the BD movies cost more.
Now as far as picture quality Blu Ray blows away DVD's if the encoding is good, and looks a bit better if it's not so good. If you want the best video your HDTV can get you need BD movies plain and simple, if you don't care about having the very best picture quality and have a good upscaling DVD player they can look very nice and the movies are dirt cheap now so it's up to you whats more important.
Me I almost never buy DVD movies anymore after seeing how much nicer the HD format is and only buy the Blu Ray movies when on a super sale as I still don't think a movie is worth 30 bucks just to have the HD version.