Blu-ray is an optical disc format designed for high definition video playback and for storing large amounts of digital data. This format is a successor to DVD.
How the blu-ray format entered the market
The disc standard was developed jointly by Hitachi, LG, Panasonic, Pioneer, Sony, Philips, Samsung, Sharp and Thomson. It has become the default disk standard for storing high definition content and digital data. But first there was competition with HD-DVD, a format supported by Toshiba and NEC. The Blu-ray was also supported by Fox, Disney and Warner Brothers.
What is the reason for the name of the format
The format name translates as "blue ray". This name is justified by the fact that a blue laser beam is used to read and write to the disc. In comparison, a red light is used to read and write DVDs.
The blue laser beam has a wavelength of 405 nanometers. Its focus is more accurate than that of a red laser beam. As a result, much more information can be stored on the same disk space with a radius of 12 cm. Discs of this format do not differ in size and shape from DVDs.
According to the rules of the English language, the word "blue" is written like this: blue. The Blu-ray name has lost one letter in order to be able to patent the technology.
Blue-ray format characteristics
The Blu-ray format uses the same phase change technology as the DVD format to re-record onto a disc. The storage capacity of a standard blu-ray disc is large enough to hold a copy of an entire hard drive on a regular computer.
The format originally contained 27 gigabytes on one side of the disc and 50 gigabytes on dual-layer discs. Single-sided blue-ray discs store up to 13 hours of standard format video, as opposed to single-sided DVDs, which can hold up to 133 minutes of video.
In July 2008, Pioneer announced that it had developed a way to store up to 500 gigabytes on a 20-layer blu-ray disc. But these discs are not planned to be released to the market in the near future.
The data transfer rate on blu-ray discs is 36 megabits per second. This is enough for high quality video recording.
Blu-ray media cannot be played on conventional CD and DVD players, because such devices are not equipped with a special violet-blue laser for reading.
If the blu-ray player is equipped with a laser for reading DVDs and CDs, it can play discs in all three formats.
Blu-ray players are available from manufacturers such as Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung and Sony. The Playstation 3 is also equipped with a blu-ray driver.
Blu-ray discs differ in picture and sound quality. On such media, the picture is more saturated, there is no square effect. The blu-ray format allows you to output sound to 7 speakers, unlike DVD, which is provided for a maximum of five channels. This is a great solution for modern cinemas.
