The Difference Between DVD and Blu-ray

Several years ago, my children became very interested in the Terminator series of movies. For some reason, the 2nd one was almost constantly playing on the basic cable channels (like TBS, TNT, AMC, etc.). It is one of those movies that I can turn on and watch while doing other things so they saw it and liked it -- mainly because the 'hero' was a kid, I think. Plus being on those channels, it had been significantly edited.

However, I had to explain the background to them. Chick began to request to watch the first one as a result. I held off for a time (it was made in the '80's I think and so not exactly a family film) helped along by the fact that my Blockbuster (the one I worked at and got free rentals from) didn't have a copy. But one night, when Hubby was out of town or something, I saw that we had the Blu-ray version in and took it home.

I knew that there were a couple of speed bumps but I had those figured out. The nice thing about dvd's is that you can hit that little 'FWD' button and it will skip to the next chapter so I planned to do that for the love scene. As for one of the opening scenes where Arn is giving us a full view of his naked bum, I had figured it out too. And they were both teens already, so I knew that we could talk about stuff that came up.

It's usually been my policy to tell them either that's something they need to wait on or watch it with them and deal with any questions. A flat 'no' without any explanation or discussion seems a little confused to me since they'll have to learn to make those decisions eventually and it might just push them right into something just to defy the 'no' rather than because they want to see it or try it.

So we began to watch it. The TV guardian was taking care of the language for me. Chick did notice when I started to hover near the television but I think she was putting it down to one of my quirks. So as Arn stood looking out over the city and the camera panned back to reveal his hiney, I simply reached over and slapped my hand over it. They both laughed at me, figuring out why, but expressed their appreciation too. Neither of them really wanted that in their heads.

Since the love scene was quite a bit later, I sat down to watch again. I knew there was a scene coming up where he was still in the buff but everything important was shadowed very cleverly with only his shoulders, head, and feet showing. Or so I thought...

You see, I never really thought there was a whole lot of difference between dvd's and blu-rays. The only time I could see a difference was in very visual photography type films. For instance, we used to use Polar Express in the one in the store a lot because it was that type of film and really showed off the high definition of the Blu-ray. The main selling point to me was the sound quality and the endurance of the disks. You practically have to drag a nail across the back to scratch them.

But as Arn began his walk toward the hooligans who would supply his wardrobe, the shadowy parts suddenly had details -- details that, while shadowy, were still hard to miss and easy to make out. I believe I made a sound like a squeal or choking, possibly a combination of both, and began fumbling for the remote. By the time I got it, the scene was over and we just seeing his shoulders again.

Fortunately, one child had hit the restroom and one was fixing a drink so they both missed the lesson on anatomy. I learned a lesson though....

There is a difference between blu-ray and dvd.