Blu Ray discs ain’t blue

I’d never seen a Blu Ray disc ‘in the flesh’ and at first sight you’d think it identical to the hundreds of DVDs in your collection. It’s not until you insert the disc into the player that you start to see the difference. The player itself displays a slick boot up screen as the disc initialises and loads the Blu Ray menu. It’s worth noting that this initial boot seemed longer than a standard DVD, but this may have been my impatient anticipation! The discs themselves hold upto 50GB of data which allows a 1080p picture format that gives a quality to drawl over. And providing you have a screen to match the picture, you will be drawling!

The BD-P1000 looks and feels as good as the image it produces. In a slick black finish, the blue display and backlights give the player a fresh modern design. Although the player offers complete backward compatibility with your existing collection of DVDs and CDs, this unit will not unfortunately play back the rival HD DVD technology.

Blu Ray or HD-DVD?

Sony are a major player in the Blu Ray field and you could be forgiven for thinking this to be the kiss of death for the format - their defunct formats include Betamax and  MicroMV for example. But the number of  film studios backing the format is a boost to the Blu Ray camp, and that backing seems to be winning where it’s most important – shelf space. It seems getting your hands (or pre-ordering) a Blu Ray film is easier than getting hold of a HD DVD.

What might be seen as a stumbling block to the dominance of Blu Ray is the imminent release of the HD DVD addon for the Xbox 360. At a proposed price of £129.99, this addon’s significantly cheaper than any Blu Ray player currently on the market.  And with rumours abound that the drives will work on Windows Media Center driven PCs, this is a major coup for the HD DVD camp.

That said, there’s increasing talk of future players accepting both formats and the price point of the 360 addon smacks of desperation from Microsoft. As it stands, Blu Ray seems to have stolen a lead and that’s where my money stands… but if you’re prepared to wait, we’ll see a clearer picture and much cheaper prices this time next year. Once again it’s a case of wait and see in the HD world, but I’ve a feeling our next HD update won’t be so long in the coming.