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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Blu-ray Players

Blu-Ray Disc logoImage via Wikipedia
What is Blu-ray?
Well many of you think in terms of quality blu ray is best. Yes ofcourse you are rite but not only in terms of quality but also in terms of data storage also blu ray is amazing.
Now a days with increase in demand of storage capacity gigabyte(GB) is now being replaced by terabyte(TB), intense use of multiple graphic cards, video cords, gaming realtime 3D experience etc are now in a phase of revolution. The same is true with blu ray(It is not called as Blue ray.It is Blu ray)
The blu ray disc(BD) commonly called as blu ray is an official product of Blu-Ray Disc Association along with their electronic partners like sony, apple, dell etc
Blu-ray has high storage capacity and one single disc can store up to 50GB. The recent advance in blu-ray is that Pioneer has produced a blu-ray disc of capacity 500GB. That's great. Most of the DVD's plays on a normal red laser which has a greater wavelength. Blu-ray disc plays on blue laser whish has lesser wavelength than red laser. Therefore the laser will have greater accuracy and data can be stored more tightly in lesser space. This makes them to hold upto 25 to 50 GB of data on a single disc.
Blu-ray gives the experiences of audio and video more precisely than HD DVD enhancing the quality of experience and vision.
OK!! I go for Blu-ray, then what???

Now the question which software supports blu-ray and what are the requirements??
Well there are many players and burning ROM's available in market that support blu-ray but the most popular are
  • Power DVD
  • Nero
  • Divx
Although there are others but the main competitors are the above mentioned,so i will confine my discussion to them.
A review:
Now after knowing the best of many,we try to choose best among them. After looking into many features and supports i put forward my opinion about these.
POWER DVD ULTRA 3D:
One word i can say, the best!!! yeah power dvd has most features of all and comes with surplus options. You can convert DVD or 2D movie to real time theatrical 3D movies. Supports blu-ray and blu-ray 3D. It comes with video features like True Theater Display mode, hardware acceleration etc.
Audio features include true theater surround, Dolby pro-logic, Dolby theater, dts digital surround
Note:
If you enable hardware acceleration, true theater display will be disabled. This a major bug of power DVD
Pros:Very easy to use,easy to install and easy options and comes with wide variety of options
Cons:The major drawback of power DVD is that it will not support external subtitles and supports only for Divx type files. Needs lot of RAM,even your 1GB RAM will struck the player while you play blu-ray movie.

Nero Show Time
This player comes with ease and very handy if you find Power DVD requires some upgrade from your system. Nero also comes with Dolby pro-logic, dts sorround and their unique Nero sorround.
It will not freeze your system and 1GB RAM is enough to play a blu-ray movie.
Note:
Am mentioning about the Nero Show Time only not the Nero Multimedia Suite or Burning ROM.Since am talking about players and their options and not how to edit or create.
Pros:
Very easy to use and best alternative to Power DVD for low grade systems.
Cons:
Will not support 3D movie and there is no option to switch for it. No true theater or theatrical audio or video settings. That means custom options for video are very narrow or absent. When you wish to watch a blu-ray movie with Nero show time, you have to watch as it comes. You cannot select many custom options for video or audio playback as provided by power DVD
Note:
This review is for Nero Show time version 9. Now the Nero multimedia suite has changed the name of Nero show time and replaced completely with Media Hub.
Divx:
This is the fastest emerging competitor of all. Its ancillary features are almost equal to that of Power DVD and very easy to use. You can play the blu-ray movies,convert and burn. Contrasting feature of Divx and Power DVD is that Divx player supports any format of video and external subtitles.
Pros:
Very easy to install and watch. User friendly Interface and highly flexible player.
Cons:
There are no custom settings of audio and video for a free version of Divx. You have to buy to enable all the theatrical and 3D options. For simple homely guys free edition is enough but for maniacs who are doing research will try the upgraded version too.
The major drawback of Divx free version is that the audio enhancer comes for only 30days and after that the volume of the movie or song will very low and you can hardly hear the sound.
Others:
Windows media player and VLC media player are my last options coz they don't have many features and wide list of options as provided in Power DVD or Divx. You have to watch the movie as it is and with which you cannot have any custom changes.
Remember VLC can play any format and hence blu-ray too and it will not freeze your PC. If am given a choice between WMP and VLC, i would opt for VLC.

1 comment:

  1. for images and screen shots of players and their difference in clarity visit

    http://hubpages.com/hub/BestPlayer

    ReplyDelete

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