Blu-ray is an optical storage format that Sony and Phillips developed. It was created to store large amounts of high definition video and sound. Blu-ray’s name came from the type of laser it uses to read and write data. The laser is a hue of blue-violet. Due to the extreme density of these optical discs, data must be small in order to fit onto the disc. A blue-violet laser has a shorter wavelength than the normal red lasers used today.
Blu-Ray’s Advantages and Disadvantages
Being on the shorter wavelength end of the light spectrum unlike the color red, which is used for DVD and CD technologies (405 nanometer for Blu-ray versus 650 nanometer and 780 nanometer for DVD and CD technology), the blue laser can store much more data using the same space because of a much smaller “spot size” requirement. Blu-ray’s 405nm wavelength blue-violet laser uses an 0.85nm pickup aperture.
Single-layer Blu-ray disks currently store 23.3GB of data, while dual-layer Blu-ray disks store 46.6GB of data.
There is currently a market war between HD DVDs and Blu-ray DVDs. These two types of DVDs are competing for the new media form title. Neither media type has made enough in-roads to gain the championship title.
Blu-ray DVD’s most important benefit is that it holds more data on one disc, therefore allowing high definition audio and video. The more data on the disc, the more data can be read to give a clearer picture with more color and vividness.
Because data is so close together, slight scratches contaminated early types of Blu-ray discs. One of Blu-ray technology’s benefits is that a new coating has been developed that makes Blu-ray discs extremely difficult to scratch.
Sony’s PlayStation will cause blu-ray to become an important part of the consumer electronics market. The Sony PlayStation includes a basic blu-ray DVD player, which might cause its sales to increase, making it the de facto standard.
Blu-ray discs’ disadvantage is that they are quite expensive. For instance, players cost about $1,000 and DVDs are more expensive than their standard counterparts. Because Sony partially developed blu-ray, Sony has included DRM or Digital Rights Management that will make it more difficult for people to place shift and time shift their content.
Blu-ray Technology
BD Formats
There are three formats being developed for Blu-ray technology. The BD-ROM or Blu-ray read-only disc format will be used to store movies, computer games, and software. The Blu-ray recordable or BD-R will give users the opportunity to store more data and HDTV recordings on one disc. The BD-RE or Blu-ray rewritable disc format will allow users to change the disc’s contents.
Disc Capacity
One blu-ray disc stores massive amounts of data. Blu-ray technology enables users to store an average of 25GB-27GB worth of data on just one layer. This is equivalent to 4 hours worth of HD video and audio. Moreover, Blu-ray dual layer discs have a storage capacity of up to 54GB. Research on Blu-ray discs with up to four layers and with storage capacities of up to 200 GB is currently underway.
Supportable File Formats
Blu-ray discs support different file formats such as MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and High Profile AVC and VC-1 coder decoders that enable the discs to store up to four hours of HDTV audio-video per layer. It also supports different multi-channel audio file formats, such as the different file formats of Dolby and DTS as well as PCM audio file formats. BD rewritable and recordable disc formats are backwards compatible with older formats such as MPEG-2, while newer codecs enable Blu-ray technology to support new file formats in the future. The integration of Java cross platform will enable the Blu-ray disc to have interactive menus as well as add new content or updates such as new subtitles through the Internet.
Regional Codes and Security
For security, Blu-ray supports mandatory HDCP encrypted output, ROM-Mark watermarking, BD+ dynamic cryptology, and the Advanced Access Content System (AACS).
Blu-ray discs have three regional codes: one for countries in North America, one for countries in east Asia except China and Japan, another for countries in Europe and Africa, and another one for all the other countries in Asia such as China, Russia, etc.
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