Blu-ray technology is a high definition technology capable of picture resolution of up to 1920 x 1080.
You may have heard of various types of high definition output including1080i and 1080p.
The number 1080 refers to the lines of horizontal resolution.
Compare this to the maximum of 576 lines of resolution for high-quality DVDs and you'll see why high definition programming looks so good.
The initials following 1080 refers to the either interlaced (i) or progressive (p) scans.
To understand the difference between interlaced and progressive scanning, you must understand how television images are typically composed.
Two fields create one frame.
Each field is interlaced so that when combined together, they create a full image called a frame.
In television, 30 frames are shown per second, or 60 fields per second.
1080i indicates a picture's resolution using interlaced.
This results into a high resolution image with television-like quality.
Progressive images dispense with the fields and display progressive, multiple full frames.
1080p indicates a high resolution image that appears more like film.
Blu-ray disc offers the higher quality 1080p video resolution.
In fact, this HDTV video quality is the premier option available far surpassing any other medium or broadcast format currently on the market.
Blu-ray players and Blu-ray recorders also feature up to 54 Mbps bandwidth which is about twice that of a normal HDTV broadcast making the video quality of Blu-ray disc even more impressive.
If you think that's good enough, there's more.
The Blu-ray disc format doesn't require tight compression algorithms that often compromise picture quality because of the huge storage capacity.
In addition, Blu-ray disc players can also handle other formats such as standard-definition TV.
In fact, Blu-ray recorders can record up to 23 hours of standard television.
So no matter what you want, the highest quality for HDTV or huge amounts of storage capacity, Blu-ray technology is the perfect fit.