When movie discs hit the market, many avid home theatre fans have marveled as how great the picture definition, sound quality, and overall performance of DVD's are. However, they didn't expect that home viewing can get even better. Since the introduction of Blu-Ray in the market, entertainment has taken on an entirely new definition.

 Blu-Ray brings several important enhancements to DVD that made watching home movies became even more engaging. While on the outside there seems to be nothing special with a Blu-Ray disc when compared to a DVD, the drastic improvements become apparent once the movie starts. The advantage of buying the much expensive Blu-Ray player and the Blu-Ray movie titles that goes along with it comes into focus once these devices are made to work side by side.

The foremost and most notable difference between Blu-Ray and DVD's is its storage capacity. Double layer DVD's can only store as much as 8GB. A Blu-Ray disc, on the other hand, can work so much better as it can hold more than five times a DVD can. With a maximum capacity of 50GB, you know that you are bound to get a lot from a Blu-Ray than a DVD.

What does more storage means, one might ask. There are simply many things that you can do with more storage space. First off, the addition of very detailed images into that big space is more than possible. Simply said, viewers can expect higher image quality with Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray can assign a resolution to as high as 1080 pixels with any movie - a number that is twice better than the 480 pixels that a DVD can provide at most.

This is made possible not only because of the bigger storage space available; it also has a lot to do with the technology behind the device. With better video and sound compression methods, it isn't just the picture quality that is directly improved. The sound also gets better because of the high resolution formats and yes, the use of a more efficient audio compression method.

And when it comes to special features, nothing beats the Blu-Ray technology. Blu-Ray allows for pop-up menu functions that allow users to do things while the movie is playing. It is also even possible to download new titles and hot videos from an internet source straight into your device and play it when you like it. With all these said, upgrading to Blu-Ray from your old DVD player becomes the next best step.