AV News 184 - May 2011
Blu-ray
For many years 35mm slide film was my media of choice rather than prints.
For this reason my conversion to digital photography was quite late on due to
the technological and cost implications of achieving projected digital images
of acceptable quality. With the advent of large flat screen HD TV's and
'affordable' digital projectors, AV's are now for me the logical progression
from slides to show my photography to best advantage.
Having recently invested in an HD projector I now opt to produce AV's
using Blu-ray media which offers significant advantages in cost, portability
and improved image quality. In particular, the use of a domestic Blu-ray
player (£90) to drive HD TV or digital projector eliminates the need for high
specification laptop which would otherwise be needed to play an HD exe file.
With the addition of a Blu-ray burner (£80), my desktop computer facilitates
the production of media with the capacity of up to 2 hours of AV's at a cost of
about £1.20 per disk.
For readers interested in Blu-Ray, the most recent versions of ProShow
Gold/Producer will burn disks directly. Advocates of PicturesToExe (Deluxe
version only) will need to create an HD AV Movie and then use third party
software (Nero 10 or the like) to burn a disk. High Definition offers the
creators of AV's the opportunity to achieve better levels of image quality
provided the display device is capable of handling the extra detail. Typically
an AV created to the current HD standard of 1920 x 1080 pixels has more
than two and a halt times the image detail of one produced at 1024 x 768.
Flat panel LCD computer screens, flat panel TV's and digital projectors must
have a 'native' resolution of 1920 x 1080 or better to display HD in full detail.
Every digital display device has a fixed number of pixels arranged vertically
and horizontally to form a matrix of individual dots providing light and colour.
Projectors and screens with lower native resolutions are often advertised as
'HD ready', but are not true HD as they handle images by downsizing and
discarding detail.
The most inexpensive digital projectors currently on the market typically
have a native resolution 1024 x 768 with an aspect ratio of 4:3. The
relationship of horizontal to vertical pixels dictates the aspect ratio. Standard
HD at 1920 x 1080 is a 'widescreen' aspect ratio of 16:9.
Blu-ray media is the high capacity alternative to 4.7GB recordable DVD's.
Single and dual layer recordable Blu-ray disks have capacities of 25GB and
50GB respectively. Replacement internal and external Blu-ray computer drives
are becoming increasingly affordable. If you are considering an upgrade make
sure you choose a model capable of writing to all media types as cheaper units
will play and record to CD's/DVD's but only read Blu-ray disks.
For more information about Blu-ray you can always contact me.
The next North Wales & Wirral AV day will be on Sunday 8th May, do come
along and join us. See www.avnews.org.uk for more details.
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