The Truth About Blue Ray

Blue Ray, blu ray, Blu-Ray – is often misspelled (Blu-ray disc is the correct, full name – BD for short). Regardless of the spelling Blu-ray is the future of the optical disc, offering a full five times more storage capability than a DVD and even more than that sometime in the future.

Blu-ray discs were developed to synch up with and support the extremely high quality of picture and programming being offered by high definition televisions (HDTVs). DVDs simply do not offer enough storage capacity for this futuristic medium and something with more versatility had to be developed to fill the void.

Blu-ray is expected to completely replace DVD, but the two will co-exist into the future until HDTVs become less expensive and more prevalent. Most Blu-ray disc players also support DVD playback so your existing DVD collection (and DVD burning software) isn’t in any danger of becoming obsolete (like, for example, laserdisc). Some will also have CD capability.

Blue Ray Discs?

The oddly spelled name is based on the technology used to read and write the discs. DVDs are read and written to using a red laser. The blue-violet laser used to read and write BDs gives them the blue and ray refers to the optical ray. They left out the ‘e’ so they could trademark the technology and the brand name. So, it’s not Blue Ray, or even Blu-Ray. It’s Blu-ray.

The beauty of the blue-violet laser is its ability to write and read to the finest point ever available. This is how BDs can load up so much more data on the same (physical) sized disc as a DVD. A single-layer Blu-ray Disc can hold 25GB. A dual-layer disc can hold 50GB. Compared with the sad 4.7GB offered by the DVD and it’s easy to understand why BDs are all the rage.

Here’s more proof that the Blu-ray disc format is here to stay: it also includes support for multi-layer discs, which theoretically allows the future storage capacity to increase to as much as 100GB-200GB (25GB per layer) by just adding more layers to the discs.

How much video can you fit on a Blu-ray disc?

More than nine hours of high-definition (HD) video can fit on a 50GB Blu-ray disc. Around 23 hours of standard-definition (SD) video can fit on a 50GB Blu-ray Disc.
Blu-ray also has the potential for much higher speeds, as a result of the larger numerical aperture (NA) adopted by Blu-ray disc. The large NA value effectively means that Blu-ray will require less recording power and lower disc rotation speed than DVD and HD-DVD to achieve the same data transfer rate. While the media itself limited the recording speed in the past, the only limiting factor for Blu-ray is the capacity of the hardware.

Blu-ray site is equipped with forums, the most informative threads of which center around what movies are coming soon to Blu-ray disc.

Blu-ray advantages:

• Random access
• Browsing and Searching
• Playlists
• Simultaneous recording and playback
• Improved picture and sound
• Ability to record HDTV and surround sound

Blu-ray board of directors (studios and manufacturers creating and supporting the Blu-ray format) currently includes:

• Apple
• Dell
• Hewlett Packard
• Hitachi
• LG
• Matsushita
• Mitsubishi
• Pioneer
• Royal Phillips
• Samsung
• Sharp
• Sony
• Sun
• TDK
• Thomson
• 20th Century Fox
• Disney
• Warner Bros.

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Also, if you haven't already tossed all your DVD's out the window (we wouldn't advise that), be sure to check out our DVD Burning Review site for tips and rankings of the best software for backing up your timeless favorites.