The Specifics of Blu-ray Discs

With the advent of high definition televisions, people like to make the most of their expensive pieces of technology. The Blu-ray disc makes that possible, since it plays graphics and sounds in stunning, crystal clear HD.

Blu-ray was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association, which is a conglomerate of around one hundred eighty corporations, including major film studios like Warner Bros. and computer giants like Apple. The format was slowly developed since 2000 and took off faster in 2003, finally being finished in 2004.

Unlike DVDs, Blu-ray discs can hold a whopping twenty five gigabytes of data, which is why it can play movies in high definition. The amount of data also determines other things, such as sound quality and special features.

Twenty five gigabytes is certainly a lot, but this number can be expanded upon greatly. This can be done by adding layers to the disc, so a dual-layer disc could hold 50MB. Currently it only goes up to two layers, but the Blu-ray Disc Association plans on adding more layers in the future.

The breakthrough with Blu-ray discs is the wavelength of the reading laser, which is around three hundred nanometers shorter than DVDs (blue and red, respectively). The shorter wavelength maximizes the usable area on the disc surface and creates more storage capacity.

The current standard speed for Blu-ray discs is known as 1x. As movies become more defined, rates can be increased to 10x or 12x, but that is difficult to reach due to limitations in hardware.

Blu-ray can take a number of different forms, just like the computer form of a DVD is a CD, roughly. All discs share similarities, which enables some formats to be combined, such as a proposed Blu-ray and DVD disc, which could be played on either type of respective hardware. DVD is bound to become obsolete in the near future, so many people wonder what the point of making such a format would be.

Tags: entertainment, arts, music

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