The format wars are over, the victor has emerged triumphant and more and more people are following the early adopters into a brave new world of high-definition movies and games. Blu-ray is now officially on the rise: the format has released its thousandth film, ensuring that there is now a high-definition title for everyone.

And with players now affordably priced — even in these credit-crunched times — and more people buying the Blu-ray-ready PlayStation 3, we’re heading towards the tipping point when there will be a player in every home and DVD will give way to the next generation, just as VHS did ten years ago (although at least this time round you can keep playing your old discs on the new machines).

But with thousands of high-definition TV-owners still without a Blu-ray player and confusion rife — no, your DVD player won’t play Blu-rays, but your Blu-ray player will play DVDs — we thought that now is the perfect time to take a closer look at the format: how it compares to our beloved DVDs, why it will make the most of your HDTV and what, in short, all the jargon surrounding the technology actually means. We also examine the hardware you need to make the most of Blu-ray with our handy guide to the questions to ask when investing, and demystify some of the head-scratching confusion about the new format in our Frequently Asked Questions section.

We also go genre-by-genre to examine the very best Blu-ray discs to date: whether it’s action, horror, drama, crime or Westerns that float your boat, our selection represents the best of the best, the films that every self-respecting movie fan needs to own in super-duper high definition. We take a look at the titles headed for Blu-ray in the near future, and give you the chance to win a complete high definition set-up, including a Blu-ray player and a selection of titles. In other words, this is high definition in extreme close-up. Blu-ray starts here...

Mark Dinning
Editor