Lifelike video and images boasted by Blu-Ray disc movies

Blu Ray disc, a next-generation optical disc format designed for high-density storage of high-definition video and data, will be soon seeing wooing the customers in Japan, making it the World’s second largest market to see the launch of Blu-ray Disc movies.

In a joint conference held in Tokyo, major Hollywood studios including Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc, Paramount, Warner Bros, Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Walt Disney Co. announced that beginning from November, around 75 blu-ray movies will enter the Japan market.

Blu-ray disc, jointly developed by a group of consumer electronics and PC companies called the Blu-Ray Disc Association, led by Sony, offers advantage over the normal format as it can store more information in the same amount of space.

It is presently competing with HD DVD format and aims at supplanting the present home video standard, the DVD.

The conference also had model players touted by biggies like Sony, Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic), Pioneer and Hitachi, but none of the companies announced neither the date of the arrival nor the price of their machines.

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. said that it will release the Playstation-3 game in Japan a few days after the Blu-Ray movie titles will woo the customers. The playstation-3 boasts of a Blu-ray Disc drive appropriate for playback of Blu-ray Disc movies.

On November 3, market will be seen with four titles put up by Warner BrosEntertainment Inc. Although, the discs will cost $34, but those which will be released simultaneously with the DVD’s will be charged more.

DVDs for both formats will be released hy Paramount, which will provide it a stage of 80 percent world wide movie market. Universal has so far announced it will release HD DVD movie videos.

Blu-ray systems use a blue-violet laser operating at a wavelength of 405 nm, similar to the one used for HD DVD, to read and write data. Conventional DVDs and CDs use red and infrared lasers at 650 nm and 780 nm respectively. Not only this, high-definition video, lifelike colours and sharper images give an edge to the Blu-Ray systems and HD DVD.

In US and other nations, next-generation movie disks have already hit store shelves, and such announcemnts are also expected soon in Japan.

The war between the two advanced technology players will be similar to the war between VHS and Betamax in the 1970s and 1980s.

Blu-ray is receiving more support than HD DVD, its primary rival, from film studios and distributors, but the two formats are now closer in levels of industry support. However, HD DVD has fewer exclusive content providers, only Universal Studios, among the majors. While Blu-Ray is backed by Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc, Paramount, Warner Bros, Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Walt Disney Co.

Besides movie titles, music related discs will also enter the market soon.