What is Blu-Ray?

Blu-ray is the newest generation of digital media storage. The main advantage of blu-ray discs is that they have a much greater capacity, allowing for high definition movie length feature to be recorded on a single disc.

This greater data density is achieved by using a blue-violet laser which reads and writes data at a much shorter wavelength than the red and infrared lasers used with DVD discs. The blu-ray technology is currently competing with HD-DVD for the consumer market. Blu-ray’s advantage is that it can store more information on a disc while HD-DVD can utilize lower cost red lasers.

The DVD format can store up to 4.7 gigabytes of information on a single layer, HD-DVD more than tripled that to 15 gigabytes, and blu-ray has a single layer capacity of 25 gigabytes. Blu-ray resolution is 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high when connected to a high definition television with an HDMI cable and is also typically capable of upgrading lower resolution material to that resolution.

Blu-ray dual layer discs (50 gigabytes) can hold nine hours of high definition video or 23 hours of standard definition video! A single layer blu-ray disc has the capacity to hold a 2 hour 15 minute movie in high definition and still have enough storage space for about 2 additional hours of bonus material in standard definition without any data compression!

Blu-ray could potentially provide the basis for a further step in storage capacity. TDK announced in August of 2006 that they had successfully tested a blu-ray disc that held 200 gigabytes on a single side by using six layers of data! That was, however, an experimental disc that would not be playable on current blu-ray standard players.

Blu-ray region codes are not the same as DVD codes. Region 1 discs are playable in North America will also be usable in central America, South America, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan. Region 2 discs will play in Africa, Australia, Europe, French territories, Greenland, and New Zealand. Region 3 discs are coded for Central/South Asia, China (mainland), India, Nepal, and Russia.

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