With the advent of the Compact Disc at the beginning of Nineteen Eighties, the world underwent a dramatic change. It offered excellent audio quality and its 650MB storage capacity was a great leap in data storage and retrieval. This was the first time people had access to pre-recorded, recordable and rewritable media at low costs. It enabled widespread recording and distribution of audio. However, in the 1990’s, the demand for higher storage capacities arose and led to the development of the DVD which was a 5 – 10 x increase in storage capacity. Even though the know-how was novel, the latest DVD format made use of the same form factor as the Compact Disc that made easy the transformation to next generation format. This increased the DVD’s popularity with the clients.
Today, the blu ray discs are yet another revolution in technology. This novel optical disc system is an important creation of the Blu Ray Disc Association (BDA) which includes Dell, Hp, Hitachi, LG, Samsung, Apple, JVC, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Sony, Pioneer, Philips, Thomson, Sharp and TDK. The BDA boasts 180 of the world’s leading consumer electronics, media and personal computer manufacturers.
Blu ray discs offer an increase in storage capacity with its 25GB on a single-layer disc to its 50GB on a dual-layer disc. It is the last word in user experience and facilitates rewriting, recording, playback and distribution of HD videos.
The fact that the blu ray discs are based on the bare disc physical form factor renders it compatible with compact discs and DVDs.
The blu ray discs, as the name suggests, uses a blue-violet laser to read and write data unlike the current technology which uses red laser.
The wavelength of a blue-violet laser (405nm) is way shorter than that of a red laser (650nm) and this has made it easier to concentrate the laser spot with superb accuracy. The plus point in this is that it allows storing of data in very little space compactly giving the user extra space to add more data even though the size of the disc is similar to that of a normal CD/DVD.
Presently supported by some of the world’s leading consumer electronics, personal computer, video game, recording media, and music companies, these new generation blu ray discs have also won the support of Hollywood studios and other smaller studios, some of whom have already announced the release of new movies on blu ray discs.