Jonathan Takiff: Happy birthday to Blu: Videodisc format turns 5

THE GIZMO: Very much alive, Blu-ray turns 5.

ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE: Higher-quality video and sound were the primary selling points for Blu-ray when the 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 present 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.

GIMME MORE: Wisely, movie studios and hardware companies backing Blu-ray have grasped that user flexibility, bonus extras 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, reports the NPD Group. More than 3,000 Blu-ray titles are now available, calculated Sony Blu-ray Disc Group Vice President Victor Matsuda. 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 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment President Mike Dunn.

Now with more enhancements looming on the horizon, Blu-ray's future is looking so bright, we gotta wear shades - maybe even the 3-D variety.

EMBRACE THY ENEMY: One of the hottest sales motivators offered in Blu-ray packages is Digital Copy. That's an extra file (often hiding on the bundle's bonus DVD disc) that loads onto your PC or Mac. From there, the movie can be transferred onto one portable smartphone, media player or tablet of your choice.

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

Now on the Blu-ray (only) "Super Awesome Edition" of "Cedar Rapids," Fox is opening another can of worms with the Wi-Fi Digital Copy Transfer option. It invites a disc owner to move a small (1GB) copy of the movie directly from a Blu-ray player to a portable device, eliminating steps and with no cables attached.

The movie transfer worked fine though slowly (42 minutes) in my test, shifting content wirelessly from a (Blu-ray-drive-based) PlayStation 3 to an iPad.