Blu-ray or HDTV?by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 09 Jan 2008 08:18 AM When it comes to true high definition on recorded media, you'll need to upgrade your home theater system to feature a DVD player that is capable of keeping up with your high definition television, such as a plasma or LCD unit. While progressive scan DVDs make a good effort, they aren't capable of fully taking advantage of true high definition, either playing it or recording it. Many newer standard DVD players feature technology called upscaling. This maximizes the quality of DVD, giving you better detail and color quality. While these DVD players do an even better job at coming close to true high defiition, you still won't get the best quality that is available. That is where true high definition technology comes in. The good news is that it is finally available. The bad news is that there are two competing formats, and it is inevitable that one format will win out over the other, making the losing format obsolete; remember Betamax? Both formats use a blue laser technology instead of the standard red laser. The blue laser has a shorter wavelength and uses a disc that is the same size of the standard DVD disc but can store much more data. The two competing technologies are HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. My personal opinion is that Blu-Ray will win out. It has a better, more innovative technology, and more and more prominent movie companies, such as Warner Brothers, are supporting Blue-Ray exclusively. Standard DVDs will still be made as well. That is not to say that hit movies won't be available on HD-DVD: Shrek 3 is one example, but more movie companies seem to be quickly switching over to Blu-Ray. At the moment, Lions Gate, MGM, Miramax, Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Brothers all support Blu-Ray. HD-DVD is currently supported by BCI, Dreamworks, New Line Cinema, Paramount Pictures, New Line, Studio Canal, and Universal Pictures. Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here. Related Articles: Down and Dirty Guide to TV Types What Can You Do with Old Electronics? Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantcomputers tags User Comments No comments on this article yet. Be the first to comment! Community Tags Bluray, dvd, HDTV, high definition, television Discuss this article
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