With the advent of the high definition screen and arrival of Plasma and LCD screens that exceed 40 inches you will start to realise how poor the picture quality is from the average DVD or even a broadcast signal.
Blue ray disks (or BD or Blu ray) are so called because they use a blue laser which operates at a higher frequency with a shorter wavelength and allows the encoding to be more closely packed together. Instead of limited a movie disk to the 7.4 gb of a DVD much larger files, upto 25gb (or 50gb on a dual layer disk), can be generated and this can take into account the full high definition resolution.
Blue ray is backed by the leading electronics companies including Sony, who have released the Playstation 3 which can play blue ray films. Noting the sucess of the Playstation 1 & 2 we recommend blue ray as the future format for high definition movies as most homes will be able to play them.
Obviously dedicated blue ray players are available but for the price difference you might as well get a Playstation 3 and enjoy one of the most advanced game systems around.
Although a new technology the prices are somewhat lower now as you can see from the blueray price comparison site below.