Whenever Blu-ray is mentioned, it always seems to offer a better viewing experience than DVD. The advent of the Blu-ray Disc format blurred the issue of the difference between standard DVD upscaling and the true HD capabilities of BD discs. Although Blu-ray ultimately won the HD format war. There is still a lot of confusion among the general public about the difference between DVD and Blu-ray.
You might think that Blu-ray is a waste of money with a slight improvement in quality. In fact, many Blu-ray Creator users complain that there is no noticeable improvement at all. But, for various reasons, you will still choose Blu-ray. You know that BD is the future. Although a Blu-ray Disc looks identical to a DVD in size and shape, there are still many differences between the media, including storage capacity, laser technology, disc construction, image resolution, and Creator compatibility. Check out Blu-ray vs. DVD below:
Storage Capacity
Blu-ray disc can store approximately 25 GB of data. This equals about two hours of high definition information or 13 hours of standard definition file. Dual layer Blu-ray disc can hold as much as 50 GB of data. Blu-ray caries a larger storage capacity than DVD. In this way, you can store higher quality of video and audio.
Single layer DVD can store about 4.7 GB of data, which is about two hours movie. Dual layer DVD, or DVD-9, can store twice the amount of data at 8.7 GB. It is still much less than the smallest Blu-ray disc.
Image Resolution
Because of the larger storage capacity of the Blu-ray disc, it can store much more higher quality of video and audio data. Blu-ray is designed for high definition 1080 display. Blu-ray supports resolutions up to 1920×1080 and frame rates up to 29.97 at the highest resolution (frame rates up to 59.94 at lower resolutions). Blu-ray currently has the best image resolution on the market and looks great on HDTVs.
Standard DVD offers a definition resolution of 480 or enhanced definition resolution of 520. DVD can give you a great image quality on a normal TV. But if you play DVD on a widescreen HDTV, the picture may look grainy. Due to the much lower storage capacity of a standard DVD, it is not possible to have HD video quality on a DVD. Although a DVD can store high definition data, it would only fit about 30 minutes maximum.
Availability
Blu-ray is a newer technology than DVD, which means not all of the older movies are available yet in Blu-ray format.
DVD has been around since 1996 and has had years to develop its library. Almost every movie ever made is available in DVD format and when renting movies you’ll have a much easier time finding the movie in DVD format than Blu-ray.
Player Compatibility
Besides the Blu-ray dics, all Blu-ray players currently on the market has the capability to play standard DVDs.
Blu-ray discs are not playable on a standard DVD player. Due to the red laser used in DVD players is too large to read the tiny grooves in a Blu-ray disc.
Content
Many Blu-ray movies will come with additional content not available with DVD. This content can include additional commentaries, behind the scenes, and much more and usually all on one disc.
With the limited space of a DVD, you may get some DVD movies with additional bonus content. However, many times the additional content will be on a separate disc.
Laser Technology
Blu-ray players use a blue laser to read the stored information. Blue laser wavelengths are shorter than the red at 405nm. They are about two and a half times smaller in diameter than red lasers. This allows for closer and more precise reading of information stored on the disc.
DVD players use a red laser at 650nm wave length to read DVD discs. When the disc spins the laser reads the information encoded on the media, you can get the image and sound on your television.
Price
The price of Blu-ray players is a little bit higher than DVD players’ price. But it is more affordable than ever. Blu-ray discs cost a little more than standard DVDs.
DVD players and DVD discs are cheaper than a Blu-ray disc.
3D
All the latest new 3D movies are now only distributed on Blu-ray.
All the latest new 3D movies are now only distributed on Blu-ray. Although there are 3D DVDs all the latest movies are only coming out on Blu-ray.
Yuhan Blu-ray Creator
It is very easy to author DVDs with any popular video format and popular picture format (including iphone heic format). It supports 10 kinds of preset menus and custom menus, supports PAL and NTSC, supports 4:3 and 16:9.
If you prefer to use Blu-ray Creator software to author Blu-ray on PC/Mac, you should pay more attention to this part. Here we sincerely recommend professional Yuhan Blu-ray Creator to help you make Blu-ray discs on your computer.
In this article, we mainly discuss Blu-ray vs DVD. We show you the difference between DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Besides, we also recommend an easy-to-use Blu-ray Creator for you to create a BD on a computer. Hope you can enjoy your Blu-ray and DVD discs better after reading this article.
