Blu-Ray

What is Blu-ray? Blu-ray or Blu ray discs are optical disc formats capable of recording, storing and playing back digital audio, computer data and high definition video. Blu-ray is basically a technology that uses blue-violet laser to read and write data and a Blu-ray disc is referred to as BD.

A Blu-ray disc can store more than five times the storage capacity compared to DVDs. A single layer Blu ray disc can hold around 27 GB of data while a double-layer Blu-ray disc can store 50 GB.

Blu-ray was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association comprising of a group of the world’s foremost manufacturers in consumer electronics. The existing
DVD technology uses a red laser for reading and writing data, while Blu-ray uses blue-violet laser. Blu ray has shorter wavelength compared to a red laser, which is why even though Blu ray discs are the same size, they can store more data since it can be packed even more tightly.

The Bluray format has the support of the world’s most prominent electronic companies and movie studios with some of them releasing their movies only in the Blu ray format. In fact several studios intend to make all their new releases as Blu ray movies. You can find information about new Blu ray movie releases and their reviews.

Blu ray offers flexibility in supporting multi layer disc so that you can enhance storage capacity. These single layer Blu-ray discs can take around 9 hours of high definition video while double layer Blu ray discs can play back approximately 23 hours of video.

Samsung, the leader in consumer electronics has launched a new Blu ray DVD player recently. Blu-ray DVD players are manufactured by many companies like Sony, LG, Philips etc. Shortly, a Blu ray disc and DVD hybrid format will be released so that it can be played both on Blu ray players and DVD players.

Currently Blu ray and HD DVD are the two optical movie disc formats vying with each other to become the next big thing after DVDs. If you look at HD DVD vs. Blu ray, even though they have many similarities, they differ in capacity, content and hardware support. Blu ray is far superior to HD DVD format in that it has phenomenally more disc capacity and higher data transfer rates. In content it can handle more advanced video codec’s. It supports lossless audio encoding and features advanced copy protection. Blu ray discs can give you a video resolution of 1080p.