Happy birthday to Blu - disc format turns 5

Very much alive, Blu-ray has turned 5.

Higher-quality video and sound were the primary selling points for Blu-ray when the high-definition videodisc format was introduced five years ago. Those features still score first on the priority list for buyers as they upgrade home-entertainment systems and replace that worn-out DVD player.

Truth is, movies sometimes look and sound better at home on Blu-ray than at the theater. And it's shocking how great even oldies (say, Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 classic "The Ten Commandments") can look in a meticulous Blu-ray restoration.

But if high quality were enough to keep a technology alive today, we'd still be listening to our music on CD, SACD and DVD-Audio discs, not mourning those audio formats' fall from grace.

Wisely, movie studios and hardware companies backing Blu-ray have grasped that user flexibility, bonus material and the consumer's unending lust for novelty are also key to survival in today's rapidly changing media landscape.

Their payoff is that Blu-ray sale and use figures have almost doubled in the past year, according to the NPD Group. More than 3,000 Blu-ray titles are now available, calculated Victor Matsuda, vice president of Sony's Blu-ray Disc Group. And "25 percent of our front-line [read: hot, new] title sales are in the Blu-ray format, up from 10 percent just last year," noted Mike Dunn, president of Fox Home Entertainment.

Now with more enhancements looming on the horizon, Blu-ray's future is looking bright.

Half the disc buyers with a Digital Copy option activate the feature within a year, often motivated by a vacation trip, Dunn said.

On the new Blu-ray (only) of "Cedar Rapids," Fox is offering the Wi-Fi Digital Copy Transfer option. It invites a disc owner to move a small (1 gigabyte) copy of the movie directly from a Blu-ray player to a portable device, eliminating several steps and with no cables attached.

The movie transfer worked fine -- although slowly (42 minutes) -- in a test, shifting content wirelessly from a PlayStation 3 to an iPad.

Blu-ray also cozies up with the "enemy" by delivering extra content and functionality to a smartphone, tablet or computer through pocketBlu, an app that turns that device into a wireless remote control.

Even cooler is the "Disney Second Screen" technology recently introduced on the Blu-ray of "Bambi." Install this special app on your iPad, then start the movie on your networked Blu-ray player and TV. The two screens lock into sync, and you're then treated to a second, complementary show playing just on the iPad.

Many Blu-ray discs serve extra fun and information as a picture-in-picture option. On request, Universal's new Blu-ray of "American Graffiti" overlays either a telling commentary from director George Lucas or identifications of all the rock oldies playing through the film.

Miss a line of dialogue? Through a new feature called "U Hear," you can press a button on the remote and the scene replays, with the mumbling spelled out in subtitles.

Dunn and Kris Brown, vice president of high-definition marketing for Warner Bros., think 3-D is Blu-ray's "killer app." Feedback from early hardware buyers (surveyed by the Digital Entertainment Group) has been positive. First-year sales of 3-D Blu-ray discs also were decent -- 1.75 million sold, and 1.7 million more scored in bundling deals with hardware, IHS Screen Digest reported recently.

Hardware prices are plummeting, with 3-D evolving toward a "standard" feature in players and TVs.

And 3-D releases are stretching beyond cartoon features ("Gnomeo & Juliet 3D") and Imax specials ("Hubble 3D") to embrace the likes of "Kenny Chesney Summer in 3D," "Cirque Du Soleil Journey of Man in 3D" and "Sports Illustrated Swim Suit 2011 3D Experience."