Disc Formats: What is the difference between a Standard Wedding DVD and a HD Blu-ray Wedding DVD?
The short answer is that HD Blu-ray has much higher 'definition' than standard DVD. Eventually, within perhaps 5 to 10 years, everyone will have a HD Television and all programmes will be broadcast in HD and all discs purchased will be Blu-ray (HD). But in the meantime we are in a transitional phase, and so there are advantages and disadvantages. We are very happy to provide your wedding video on either standard DVD or HD Blu-ray. If in doubt please contact us for advice.

Picture 1 (below): The relative pixel sizes of HDTV/Blu-ray compared to Standard TV/DVD.


Advantages:-
a) There are approximately 4 times the number of screen pixels in HD as there are in Standard DVD. The picture is therefore much clearer and sharper. See detailed pics above and below.
b) The Sony HD Blu-ray format is now the accepted standard for HD discs and is likely to be in existence for a considerable period of time; in all likelyhood, at least a decade. Over the same period Standard DVDs, the DVD Players which play them and the TVs required to watch them, will gradually disappear.

Disadvantages:-
a) There is an additional charge for HD due to: discs are more expensive, HD cameras are much more expensive, computers need to be ultra-powerful and the time taken to edit and create discs is much longer than for standard DVDs. Companies like ourselves, who invest in the equipment, need to recoup their costs over a period of time.
b) Not everyone will have the correct playback equipment; both a HD Television and a Blu-ray Disc Player are required.

Other Important Information:-
One important issue to take into account is the legacy aspect of standard DVDs. The chances are that at some point in the future you will want to play Standard DVD in a HD Blu-ray player: This requires the Blu-ray Player to be able to do 'upscaling'; i.e. it converts the video from Standard DVDs to something that can be viewed on a HD Television. It is extremely unfortunate that there is as yet no 'upscaling standard' agreed between different HDTV and Blu-ray manufacturers and the visual quality of Standard DVD when played on a Blu-ray player and HD televsion, can be extremely variable. We wouldn't want to name names on our website - but we do advise that you get some comparisons on 'upscaling' from consumers' magazines before you buy a Blu-ray player.

Picture 2 (below): Direct comparison at the same TV screen size.