About Blu-ray

Blu-ray Disc

Blu-ray (not Blue-ray), also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD) is the name of a new optical disc format jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), a group of leading consumer electronics in the world, personal computer and media manufacturers (including Apple, Dell, Hitachi, HP, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK and Thomson). The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data. The format offers more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs and can hold up to 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc. This extra capacity combined with the use of advanced audio codecs will offer consumers an unprecedented HD experience.

Blu-ray Disc

While current optical disc technologies such as DVD, DVD ± R, DVD ± RW and DVD-RAM rely on a red laser to read and write data, the new format uses a blue-violet laser instead, hence the name Blu -ray. Despite the different types of lasers used, Blu-ray products can easily be made compatible with CD and DVD through the use of a BD / DVD / CD compatible optical pickup. The advantage of using a blue-violet laser (405nm) is that it has a wavelength shorter than a red laser (650nm), which makes it possible to focus the laser spot with even greater accuracy. This allows data to be packed more tightly and stored in less space, so you can fit more data on the disk, even if it is the same size as a CD / DVD. This, together with the change of numerical aperture to 0.85 is what enables Blu-ray Discs to hold 25GB/50GB. The recent development by Pioneer has pushed the storage capacity of 500 GB on a single disc with 20 layers.

Blu-ray is currently supported by about 200 consumer electronics leaders worldwide, personal computer, recording media, video games and record companies. The format also has the support of all the Hollywood studios and countless smaller studios as a successor to today's DVD format. Many studies have also said it will start releasing new feature films on Blu-ray Disc day-and-date with DVD, as well as a continuous list of catalog titles every month. For more information about Blu-ray, check out our Blu-ray and Blu-ray reviews section which offers information on new and upcoming releases Blu-ray, as well as what movies are currently available on Blu-ray.