“B” for Blu-ray

by Robert Stevens  |  June 15, 2009

Blu-ray actually defines the technology upon which the Blu-ray disc was developed and it is called like that because of the blue (quite violet) laser light which is used to read the disc. The history of the Blu-ray disk starts in 2000 when the first “blue” prototypes were presented at the CEATEC exhibition. Later on, in 2002, the product was officially presented as the “Blu-ray disc”. Behind such an innovative product stands the ambition to surpass the DVD (and the HD DVD) both in technology and in sales.

The optical storage disc was at first designed by Sony with the intention to use it for the upcoming PlayStation 3, thing which in fact happened later on, in 2006 when the home console became available to the world wide market. Now, the Playstation 3 is one of the Blu-ray players and a sustainer of the Blu-ray technology.

The “blue” disc is produced by the “Blu-ray disc Association”, it's mainly used for storing HD (high definition) videos and games, plus data and had as a main competitor the HD DVD – produced by Toshiba and NEC. The historical confrontation between these two was won by the former with the help of the Warner Bros studios. More information on this topic will be presented in a future article: “Blu-ray vs. HD DVD”.

It's important to retain the fact that the Blue-ray disc can store up to six times more data as a simple DVD and it can hold 25 GB of information per layer in comparison to the 15 GB for a HD DVD. From this point of view the difference is quite big, so why didn't the Blu disc invade the market? The answer is very simple – because of the high price, with almost 40% higher than that of a HD DVD.

So, up to now we know that the “blue” discs are HD type of discs, support a large quantity of information –  up to 50 GB - and are sustained by most of the major companies (Panasonic, Samsung, Apple, Amazon, Wal-Mart, TDK - which developed a hard coating polymer for the Blu-ray discs and many others) and movie studios, among which are: Warner Bros, Walt Disney, MGM Studios, Buena Vista, 20th Century Fox and a lot more. Due to this last supporter the “region codes” have been developed, in a similar way to DVD region codes, which restrict and control movie releases and even prices according to a geographical segmentation.

Due to its characteristics, the Blu-ray disc must be played on Blu-ray players. The market has several types available of such a player, from different companies (LG, Loewe, Pioneer, Samsung and others) and players which are compatible with both Blu-ray discs and DVDs can be purchased. If one of the first Blu-ray players was retailed at a price of 3800$, now such a player can be bought for an average price of 200 – 250$. When it comes to buying “blue” discs the prices have lowered up to 20 – 25$, depending on how new is the movie or game that you are buying. The major national manufactures of such discs are Japan, Malaysia and South Korea.

In the future, the brilliant minds plan to develop a “quad-layer” Blue-ray disc which will be able to store up to 100 GB of information. But, that's not all! They even want to create a 10 layers “blue” disc which will enlarge the quantity of stored information up to 250 GB. For the moment this is unlikely to happen because, even though the “High Definition optical disc process“ was achieved, the writer technology does not permit more layers.

For sure, the future sounds HD and the development and (finally sales) in this area will increase but that doesn't mean that the DVD era is over - it's just a parallel dimension.

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