Blu-Ray

Blu-ray is an optical disc format designed to display high definition video and store large amounts of data.

Blu-ray is the successor to DVD. The standard was developed collaboratively by Hitachi, LG, Matsushita (Panasonic), Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Thomson. It became the default optical disk standard for HD content and optical data storage after winning a format war with HD-DVD, the format promoted by Toshiba and NEC.

The format is called Blu-ray because of the blue laser used to read from and write to the disc. DVD players use red lasers. The blue laser has a 405 nanometer (nm) wavelength that can focus more tightly than the red laser used for DVD. As a consequence, a Blu-ray disc can store much more data in the same 12 centimeter space. Blu-ray discs will not play on current CD and DVD players, as the players lack the laser required to read the discs. Blu-ray players equipped with multiple laser heads can play CDs and DVDs. Like the rewritable DVD formats, Blu-ray uses phase change technology to enable repeated writing to the disc.

Blu-ray disks have a standard capacity of 27 gigabyte (GB) single-sided capacity and 50 GB on dual-layer discs. Single-sided Blu-ray discs can store up to 13 hours of standard video data, compared to single-sided DVD's 133 minutes Blu-ray also features data streams at 36 megabytes per second (Mbps), fast enough for high quality video recording. In July 2008, Pioneer announced that they had found a way to increase capacity to 500 GB by creating 20-layer discs. These discs are not, however, expected to be commercially available in the near future.

Blu-ray disc players (BDPs) are available from a number of manufacturers, including Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung and Sony. Sony's Playstation 3 also has a Blu-ray drive installed.

source: www.whatis.techtarget.com

More sites to visit... Shared Pool Amazing Davao Tribu Hagtik