Technical Information

What is Blu-ray?

Overview

Blu-ray is the next-generation disc format with enough storage capacity for high definition content. This means that with Blu-ray media you can display your photos and videos in full 1080p high definition on your HDTV. Blu-ray produces incredibly sharp images and vivid colors bringing your photos and videos to life.

Blu-ray vs. DVD

If you've ever seen a Blu-ray movie or slide show you know first-hand the image quality is far superior when comparing it to standard DVD.

When you break it down into numbers, it's easy to see the differences between Blu-ray and DVD. Blu-ray can display images and videos up to 1920x1080. In contrast DVD can display nothing higher than 720x480.

		Blu-ray = 1920x1080 DVD = 720x480 These numbers refer to resolution. The higher the resolution, the sharper the picture and the better it looks on your HDTV.

If you've ever noticed that DVDs sometimes look fuzzy when played back on your HDTV, it's because the DVD format is not capable of producing video of high enough quality. Even if the images on the DVD are high resolution the DVD format cannot display them higher than 720x480. That's what makes Blu-ray such an exciting new technology, it offers break-through image quality that was not possible on disc media before!

Blu-ray also has increased storage capacity. A single-layer Blu-ray disc can hold 25GB of memory. DVD's top out at around 4.7GB. This extra storage capacity means you can fit even more onto each disc - excellent for backing up important content like family photo slide shows and videos.

Are my Photos and Videos High Resolution Enough for Blu-ray?

Chances are your digital camera already produces HD quality content. A 2.1 megapixel camera snaps photos at 1920x1080. That is the highest resolution that Blu-ray displays and will get you excellent high definition results. Using images of this size and up will easily allow you to create high definition quality photo slide shows.

The larger the resolution of your image, the less image artifacting you'll see if you crop, edit or use motion effects like zoom-in on your photos. As a general rule of thumb, always use your best quality images when creating a slide show and you'll experience amazing results.

Learn How To Create a Blu-ray Slide Show with ProShow

ProShow is the world's first photo slide show software to support Blu-ray output, giving you access to leading-edge technology and a superior viewing experience. Click here to read an informative how-to article about creating Blu-ray slide shows in ProShow. You'll learn how to optimize your output options to result in exceptional quality Blu-ray slide shows.

How To Create a Blu-ray Slide Show