A Seminar on

the topic

BLU-RAY DISC
Presented by,
J.SETHU SINDHU,
06121A1280, IV B.Tech,
Department of Information Technology

Department of Information Technology

SREE VIDYANIKETHAN ENGINEERING COLLEGE

Sree Sainath Nagar,

A.Rangampet - 517 102,
Chandragiri Mandal.
Near Tirupati.

BLU-RAY DISC

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INTRODUCTION:

Blu-ray Disc (also known as BD or Blu-Ray) is an optical disc storage medium designed
to supersede the standard DVD format.

Its main uses are for storing high-definition video, PlayStation 3 video games, and other
data, with up to 25 GB per single layered, and 50 GB per dual layered disc prototypes.
Although these numbers represent the standard storage for Blu-Ray drives, the
specification is open-ended, with the upper theoretical storage limit left unclear. 200 GB
discs are available, and 100 GB discs are readable without extra equipment or modified
firmware. The disc has the same physical dimensions as standard DVDs and CDs.

The name Blu-ray Disc derives from the blue-violet laser used to read the disc. While a
standard DVD uses a 650 nanometer red laser, Blu-ray uses a shorter wavelength, a
400 nm blue-violet laser, and allows for almost ten times more data storage than a DVD.

During the format war over high-definition optical discs, Blu-ray competed with the HD
DVD format. Toshiba, the main company supporting HD DVD, ceded in February 2008,
and the format war ended; in July 2009, Toshiba announced plans to put out its own Blu-
ray Disc device by the end of 2009.

Blu-ray Disc was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association, a group representing
makers of consumer electronics, computer hardware, and motion pictures. As of June
2009, more than 1,500 Blu-ray disc titles are available in Australia, with 2,500 in Japan,
1,500 in the United Kingdom, and 2,500 in the United States and Canada.

EVOLUTION OF BD:

In 1997, a new technology emerged that brought digital sound and video into homes all
over the world. It was called DVD, and it revolutionized the movie industry.

The industry is set for yet another revolution with the introduction ofBlu-ray Discs (BD)
in 2006. With their high storage capacity, Blu-ray discs can hold and play back large
quantities of high-definition video and audio, as well as photos, data and other digital
content.

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In this it , explains how the Blu-ray disc works and how it was developed, and we'll see
how it stacks up against some other new digital video formats on the horizon.

A current, single-sided, standard DVD can hold 4.7 GB (gigabytes) of information. That's
about the size of an average two-hour, standard-definition movie with a few extra
features. But a high-definition movie, which has a much clearer image ,takes up
about five times more bandwidth and therefore requires a disc with about five times more
storage. As TV sets and movie studios make the move to high definition, consumers are
going to need playback systems with a lot more storage capacity.

Blu-ray is the next-generation digital video disc. It can record, store and play back high-
definition video and digital audio, as well as computer data. The advantage to Blu-ray is
the sheer amount of information it can hold:

• A single-layer Blu-ray disc, which is roughly the same size as a DVD,

can hold up to 27 GB of data -- that's more than two hours of high-definition
video or about 13 hours of standard video.

• A double-layer Blu-ray disc can store up to 50 GB, enough to hold

about 4.5 hours of high-definition video or more than 20 hours of standard

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 video. And there are even plans in the works to develop a disc with twice that
amount of storage.

CHARACTERISTICS:

BD Key Characteristics are

- Broadest Industry Support

- Lifespan
- Content Protection
- Cost
- Capacity
- Robustness of Disc

Broadest Industry Support

History has shown that unified industry support for a particular format is most likely to
lead to success. Therefore, the participation of the world's most renowned consumer
electronics manufacturers and IT companies are leading in the success of the best standard
for next-generation storage: Blu-ray Disc. Blu-ray Disc is supported by leading hardware
manufacturers across the CE and IT fields from the U.S., Europe, Japan and Korea,
including Dell, HP, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Matsushita (Panasonic), Mitsubishi, Pioneer,
Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and Thomson/RCA. Finally, major blank media
manufacturers including TDK are supporting the Blu-ray Disc format as the successor of
DVD. This broad industry support will lead to a broad selection of Blu-ray Disc products,
including home video decks, PC drives, PCs line-fitted with Blu-ray Disc drives and
blank media, to be available when the format is launched in the various regions

Lifespan
The Blu-ray Disc format is designed to stay relevant for at least 10 to 15 years.
Its high storage capacity of 25 to 50 GB allows for the best-possible High Definition
video quality and satisfies even the most demanding data storage needs. As we have seen
with DVD in the past, most premium titles require two discs. This is why Blu-ray Disc
incorporates the additional storage space that is required for a High Definition feature film
including bonus bonus material in the new standard from the beginning. Formats with a
lesser capacity are only suitable as interim solutions, requiring them to be replaced much

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sooner than a format that takes tomorrow's data storage needs into account from day one.
This will of course require multiple investments in production equipment, and will lead to
increased consumer confusion.

Content Protection
Blu-ray Disc provides some of the strongest copy protection methods ever developed for
any consumer format. It makes Blu-ray Disc the best choice for any content publisher
wanting assurance that their valuable assets are protected from piracy. Based on feedback
from the content industry and taking a cue from the lessons learned by other formats, the
Blu-ray Disc format incorporates a robust copy protection mechanism, which not only
relies on implementation at the playback device, but which also includes precautions at
replicator level, which will be strictly controlled. Unlike the voluntary implementation of
CSS protection in DVD, the copy protection mechanism for Blu-ray Disc is mandatory
and will be governed by strict licensing procedures.

Cost
Blu-ray Disc is developed to offer the best long-term profitability model for content
providers. Although it might require a nominal investment in advance, it provides greater
and longer-term profit potential. This is because the format is designed to last for a period
of at least 10 to 15 years. Due to its enormous storage capacity, short-term replacement of
the technology is unnecessary, unlike other format proposals that might require less
investment in advance, but higher investments in the long term due to the replacement of
the technology when it becomes outdated. At comparable volumes, Blu-ray Disc
production costs are within 10% of DVD production costs, although a Blu-ray Disc offers
5-10 x the capacity. It is by far the cheapest format measured in cost per GB. Since Blu-
ray Disc requires fewer slots in a replication line compared to other formats, it will bring
costs on par with DVD, or even cheaper, much sooner

Capacity
The Blu-ray Disc format offers the highest capacity of any consumer media format to
date, also greatly surpassing the capacity of other format proposals. Blu-ray Disc's huge
capacity allows not only for the highest quality High Definition video to be recorded at
large bitrates (thereby eliminating the need for tight compression that could affect picture
quality), it also opens the doors to new and existing applications. Think of extra sessions
on a disc that could be unlocked when a user's Blu-ray Disc player connects to the
Internet to validate authorization. Or what about bonus material and special features that
will eventually also be recorded in High Definition quality? With Blu-ray Disc's large

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capacity, these extras can be included in high quality on the same disc, so there is no need
for separate bonus discs to accompany the movie title. Only Blu-ray Disc will be able to
offer these value-added options.

Robustness of Disc
As the result of recent breakthroughs in the development of hard coating for Blu-ray Disc,
the discs offer much stronger resistance to scratches and fingerprints than other existing
and proposed formats. Hard-coated Blu-ray Discs do not require a cartridge and can be
used as a bare disc, similar to DVD and CD. This avoids extra production costs, and
allows for small form factor applications, such as the implementation of Blu-ray Disc
drives in a notebook computer. The hard-coating technology is used for BD ROM discs,
giving them the same bare disc look and feel consumers know from DVD, and it can be
applied to rewritable and recordable Blu-ray Discs as well.

Optical disc technologies such as DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD-RAM employ a
650nm red laser, bond 0.6mm-thick discs and use lenses with a numerical aperture (NA)
of 0.6. By employing a short wavelength (405nm) blue violet laser, the Blu-ray Disc (BD)
successfully minimizes its beam spot size, reducing the lens' NA to 0.85 and so making it
possible to focus the laser spot with much greater precision.

As a consequence, the Blu-ray Disc's tracking pitch is reduced to 0.32µm, less than half
that of a regular DVD, and the minimum mark length is 0.14-micron, down from DVD's
0.4-micron. In addition, by using a disc structure with a 0.1mm optical transmittance
protection layer, the Blu-ray Disc diminishes aberration caused by disc tilt, allowing for
disc better readout and an increased recording density. This allows data to be packed more
tightly on a Blu-ray Disc than on a DVD. A single-layer disc can hold 25GB, which can
be used to record over 2 hours ofHDTV or more than 13 hours of SDTV. There are also
dual-layer versions of the discs that can hold 50GB. All this is achieved on media that is
the same physical size as a CD/DVD.

The track format of Recordable Blu-ray Disc is groove-recording, i.e., recording data only
on groove or in groove tracks. For the groove recording method, lands are sandwiched
between adjacent grooves to block heat transfer between the grooves during recording,
preventing signal quality deterioration in one groove track due to the influence of

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recording data in an adjacent groove tracks with a narrow track pitch. The track pitch
between grooves in Recordable Blu-ray Disc is 0.32µm.

The recordable layer(s) for a Recordable Blu-ray Disc employ either organic or inorganic
materials. For a single-layer Recordable Blu-ray Disc, the thickness from the disc surface
to the recording layer is 100µm. For a dual-layer Recordable Blu-ray Disc, the thickness
from the disc surface to the front layer (Layer 1) is 75µm, and that to the rear layer (Layer
0) is 100µm. For the dual-layer disc, the laser beam must be transmitted through the front
layer for data recording/playback on the rear layer. While recording Layer 0, the laser
beam is severely out of focus for Layer 1 resulting in a very low optical density which
prevents affecting the recording characteristics of Layer 1. Therefore, the front layer is
required to provide an optical transmittance of 50% or more, regardless of its recorded
state (whether data-recorded or blank).

The Recordable Blu-ray Disc specification allows for multiple variations in the recording
capacity. According to the Specifications Book, the 120mm single-layer type has three
different discs with capacities of 23.3, 25 and 27GB, while the dual-layer type has
capacities of 46.6, 50 and 54GB. The three different capacities of each type have been
realised by using different linear recording densities, but all using the same track pitch.
The minimum length of marks recordable on a disc is 0.160, 0.149 and 0.138µm, in the
order of the recording capacity.

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COMPARISION OF BD’S WITH DVD’S:

With the rapid growth of HDTV globally after 2003, the consumer demand for recording
HD programming rose quickly. Blu-ray was designed with this application in mind and
has a data transfer rate of 36MBps and utilizes the MPEG-2 transport stream compression
used by digital broadcasts. This makes it highly compatible with global standards for
digital TV, and means that HDTV broadcasts can be recorded directly to the disc without
any quality loss or extra processing. In addition, by fully utilizing an optical disc's random
access features, it's possible to playback video on a disc while simultaneously recording
HD video.

While the format itself is not compatible with previous DVD technologies, Blu-ray
products are made backwards compatible through the use of a BD/DVD/CD compatible
optical pickup, thereby allowing playback of CDs and DVDs.

Initial indications were that DVD Forum member Warner Bros. and other content-
production companies were firmly in the HD-DVD camp, since it would allow
Hollywood studios to repurpose their content one more time, without having first to incur
high investment costs in transitioning to brand-new replication equipment. However, by
the end of 2005 the BD format had taken the lead, with most major movie studios having
committed to releasing films in the format by the following year.

In January 2006 Sony announced its intention to start selling Blu-ray Disc players in the
USA in the summer of that year, a few months later than rival Toshiba's planned launch
of its first HD-DVD player. This seemed a coup for the HD-DVD camp, but slow take-up
of the technologies from a wary consumer market meant that this proved no great
advantage. It was clear by then that one of the technologies would fail, picking the winner
was tough, and few were willing to make a costly gamble on a system and media that
might soon be defunct.

The table below compares some of the principal characteristics of the Blu-ray Disc format
with the DVD format:

Characteristic DVD BD

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Capacity per layer (GB) 4.7 25

Max number of layers 2 2

Max number of sides 2 2

Substrate + cover layer (mm) 0.6 + 0.6 1.1 + 0.1

Laser wavelength (nm) 650 405

Numerical aperture 0.65 0.85

Cartridge No No

Hard coating needed No Yes

Complexity to read DVD - More complex

Maximum Data Rate (MBps) 11.08 (1x) 36.55 (1x)

Maximum Recording Single-layer 2 hours 13 hours

Time (SDTV) Dual-layer 4 hours 26 hours
Triple-layer - 39 hours

Maximum Recording Single-layer - 2 hours

Time (HDTV) Dual-layer - 4 hours
Triple-layer - 6 hours

CONSTRUCTION OF BLU RAY DISC :

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Blu-ray discs not only have more storage capacity than traditional DVDs, but they also
offer a new level of interactivity. Users will be able to connect to the Internet and
instantly download subtitles and other interactive movie features. With Blu-ray, you can:

• record high-definition television (HDTV) without any quality loss

• instantly skip to any spot on the disc

• record one program while watching another on the disc

• create playlists

• edit or reorder programs recorded on the disc

• automatically search for an empty space on the disc to avoid

recording over a program

• access the Web to download subtitles and other extra features

Discs store digitally encoded video and audio information in pits -- spiral grooves that run
from the center of the disc to its edges. A laser reads the other side of these pits --
the bumps -- to play the movie or program that is stored on the DVD. The more data that
is contained on a disc, the smaller and more closely packed the pits must be. The smaller
the pits (and therefore the bumps), the more precise the reading laser must be.

Unlike current DVDs, which use a red laser to read and write data, Blu-ray uses a blue
laser (which is where the format gets its name). A blue laser has a shorter
wavelength (405 nanometers) than a red laser (650 nanometers). The smaller beam
focuses more precisely, enabling it to read information recorded in pits that are only 0.15
microns (µm) (1 micron = 10-6 meters) long -- this is more than twice as small as the pits
on a DVD. Plus, Blu-ray has reduced the track pitch from 0.74 microns to 0.32 microns.
The smaller pits, smaller beam and shorter track pitch together enable a single-layer Blu-
ray disc to hold more than 25 GB of information -- about five times the amount of
information that can be stored on a DVD.

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 Source: Blu-ray Disc Association
Each Blu-ray disc is about the same thickness (1.2 millimeters) as a DVD. But the two
types of discs store data differently. In a DVD, the data is sandwiched between two
polycarbonate layers, each 0.6-mm thick. Having a polycarbonate layer on top of the data
can cause a problem called birefringence, in which the substrate layer refracts the laser
light into two separate beams. If the beam is split too widely, the disc cannot be read.
Also, if the DVD surface is not exactly flat, and is therefore not exactly perpendicular to
the beam, it can lead to a problem known as disc tilt, in which the laser beam is distorted.
All of these issues lead to a very involved manufacturing process.

How Blu-ray Reads Data

The Blu-ray disc overcomes DVD-reading issues by placing the dataon top of a 1.1-mm-
thick polycarbonate layer. Having the data on top prevents birefringence and therefore
prevents readability problems. And, with the recording layer sitting closer to the
objective lens of the reading mechanism, the problem of disc tilt is virtually eliminated.
Because the data is closer to the surface, a hard coating is placed on the outside of the disc
to protect it from scratches and fingerprints.

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 Source: Blu-ray Disc Association
The design of the Blu-ray discs saves on manufacturing costs. Traditional DVDs are built
by injection molding the two 0.6-mm discs between which the recording layer is
sandwiched. The process must be done very carefully to prevent birefringence.

1. The two discs are molded.

2. The recording layer is added to one of the discs.

3. The two discs are glued together.

Blu-ray discs only do the injection-molding process on a single 1.1-mm disc, which
reduces cost. That savings balances out the cost of adding the protective layer, so the end
price is no more than the price of a regular DVD.

Blu-ray also has a higher data transfer rate -- 36 Mbps (megabits per second) -- than
today's DVDs, which transfer at 10 Mbps. A Blu-ray disc can record 25 GB of material in
just over an hour and a half.

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 Formats
Unlike DVDs and CDs, which started with read-only formats and only
later added recordable and re-writable formats, Blu-ray is initially
designed in several different formats:
• BD-ROM (read-only) - for pre-recorded content
• BD-R (recordable) - for PC data storage
• BD-RW (rewritable) - for PC data storage
• BD-RE (rewritable) - for HDTV recording

BLU RAY vs HD DVD: STATE OF DIVISION

Well, as far as HD DVD vs. Blu-ray goes, it looks like we've pretty much passed the point
of no return now; with each passing day it seems less and less likely that a compromise
will be reached on a next-gen format. The ongoing peace talks between the two camps,
which have been on-again, off-again for months now, seem to have finally dissolved. It's
disappointing, but however you feel about the fact that the HD DVD and Blu-ray factions
squandered countless chances to make it right and come together, it looks like in just a
few short months they're going to be duking it out mano a mano right in our living rooms.
There may not be a lot we can do to fight back - apart from refusing to adopt either format
out of sheer spite of their pigheadedness - but no matter what we might as well at least
arm ourselves with the knowledge necessary to understand the nature of the situation at
hand.

Here's the background:

Philips's development of the Laserdisc in 1969 yielded many of the technologies Sony
carried over and adopted when they eventually partnered with way back in '79 Philips to
create a little something called the CD. Both companies were hard at work together once
again in the early 1990s on a new high-density disc called the MultiMedia Compact Disc
(MMCD -- original name, guys), but their format was more or less abandoned in favor of

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Toshiba's competing Super Density Disc (SD), which had the vast majority of backers at
the time, such as Hitachi, Matsushita (Panasonic), Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Thomson, and
Time Warner.
The two factions cut a deal, brokered by IBM president Lou Gerstner, on a new format:
DVD. Toshiba wound up on top after the dust settled in 1995/1996, and Sony and Philips,
who weren't cut in on the standard (and royalties) nearly as much as they'd have liked,
immediately started work on a next gen system. The Professional Disc for DATA (aka
PDD or ProDATA), which was based on an optical disc system Sony had already been
developing in the side, would eventually become the Blu-ray disc. Toshiba, not to be
outdone by its rivals Sony and Philips, also started work on a next gen system, the
Advanced Optical Disc, which eventually evolved into the HD DVD. But after thirty-five
years of optical audio/video disc development we're back where we were years ago: two
money-grubbing would-be standards bearers swiping at one another, threatening to wreak
havoc on the consumer electronics industry. Apparently history really does repeat itself.

So here's the technical nitty gritty before we drop the graphs n' charts on you. Both Blu-
ray and HD DVD use the same kind of 405nm wavelength blue-violet laser, but their
optics differ in two ways. Since the Blu-ray disc has a tighter track pitch (the single thread
of data that spirals from the inside of the disc all the way out -- think: grooves on a 12-
inch vinyl single vs. an Elvis Costello full-length album with 40 songs), it can hold more
pits -- information -- on the same size disc as HD DVD even with a laser of the same
wavelength.

The differing track pitch of the Blu-ray disc makes its pickup apertures differ, however --
0.65 for HD DVD vs. 0.85 for Blu-ray -- thus also making the two pickups technically
incompatible despite using the same type of lasers. HD DVD discs also have a different
surface layer (the clear plastic layer on the surface of the data -- the part that collects all
your fingerprints and scratches) from Blu-ray discs. HD DVD use a 0.6 mm-thick surface
layer, the same as DVD, while Blu-ray has a much smaller 0.1mm layer, which enables
the laser to focus at that 0.85 aperture.

Herein lies the issues associated with the higher cost of Blu-ray discs. This thinner surface
layer is what makes the discs cost more; because Blu-ray discs do not share the same
surface layer thickness of DVDs, costly production facilities must be modified or replaced
in order to produce the discs. A special hard coating (Durabis) must also be applied to
Blu-ray discs to ensure they're sufficiently resilient to protect the data that's a mere 0.1mm

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beneath the surface -- this also drives the cost up. The added benefit of keeping the data
layer closer to the surface, however, is more room for extra layers, and way more
potential data than HD DVD.

Still with us? No? Blu-ray discs are more expensive, but hold more data -- there, that's all.
So now that you know why Blu-ray discs cost more and why Sony / Philips and Toshiba
are all harshing on one another so much, we can get to the really important stuff: the
numbers and who's supporting who.

Update (2.15.2008): Obviously a lot's gone down in the past couple of years, specifically
with regard to format support. Granted, both Blu and Red have gotten a vast number of bit
players to join up as members of their respective consortiums, but content is where it
counts, and as of early 2008 HD DVD is officially on the ropes.

Capacity
Blu-Ray HD DVD
ROM single layer: 23.3 / 25GB Single layer: 15GB
ROM dual layer: 46.6 / 50GB Dual layer: 30GB
RW single layer: 23.3 / 25 / 27GB - -
RW dual layer: 46.6 / 50 / 54GB - -
Highest test: 100GB Highest test: 45GB
Theoretical limit: 200GB Theoretical limit: 60GB

Security
Blu-Ray HD DVD
Mandatory HDCP encrypted output Mandatory HDCP encrypted output (for HD)
ROM-Mark watermarking technology Volume identifier (physical layer)
BD+ dynamic crypto (physical layer) Advanced Access Content System (AACS)
Advanced Access Content System (AACS)
Movie studio support
Blu-Ray HD DVD
20th Century Fox Dreamworks
Buena Vista Home Entertainment Paramount Pictures
Hollywood Pictures Universal Studios
Lions Gate
Miramax Entertainment
MGM Studios

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New Line Cinema
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Touchstone Entertainment
The Walt Disney Company
Vivendi Universal Games
Warner Bros.

Major movie rental outlets

*Still awaiting final confirmation
Blu-Ray HD DVD
Blockbuster Movie Gallery / Hollywood Video*
Netflix
Movie Gallery / Hollywood Video*

Nationwide retail and major online support

Blu-Ray HD DVD
Amazon Amazon
Best Buy Circuit City
Circuit City Costco
Costco K-Mart
K-Mart Target
Target (said to be mostly Blu)
Wal-Mart

Format founders
Blu-Ray HD DVD
Sony Corporation Toshiba Corporation
Royal Philips Electronics Hitachi Corporation

Companies listed as Members of the Board or Managing Members

Blu-Ray HD DVD
Apple, Inc. Memory-Tech Corporation
Dell, Inc. NEC Corporation
Hewlett Packard Company Sanyo Electric Co.
Hitachi, Ltd. Toshiba Corporation
LG Electronics Inc.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation

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Panasonic (Matsushita Electric)
Pioneer Corporation
Royal Philips Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Sharp Corporation
Sony Corporation
Sun Microsystems
TDK Corporation
Thomson
Twentieth Century Fox
Walt Disney Pictures and Television
Warner Bros.

ADVANTAGES OF BLU-RAY DISC:

Huge storage capacity

Although Blu-ray can’t quite fit an entire series of HD-quality material on one disc, it
could potentially fit an entire series of standard DVD quality stuff on one. That’s pretty
good, considering the storage savings alone.

Mandatory Managed Copy

If you haven’t heard of Digital Rights Management (DRM) before, well, then this is a
really good time to be check it out. DRM is the copyright protection scheme the media
industry uses to prevent piracy, and the Blu-ray’s technology in this realm is actually
quite exciting. The possibility exists for users to copy the content of a disc a limited
number of times, similar to Apple’s iTunes system.

Backwards compatibility

hough not forced down any throats, the Blu-ray Disc Association is encouraging
manufacturers to make the players fully backwards compatible. That will allow users to
both read and write on CDs, DVDs, and, obviously, Blu-ray discs.

In tune with the gaming age

Your kids will be as excited as you are about the Blu-ray player, especially since the
device is included in Sony’s Playstation 3 console. That’s some serious value, considering

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the price tag of the PS3 includes both the player and next-gen gaming technology for only
$599 USD.

It isn’t as new as you think

Wait, think about it - that’s actually a good thing. Blu-ray has been available, in limited
supply, to the Japanese market for a few years now. That means it’s been tested by our
friends in the Far East, which makes the buy a bit less scary and nowhere near as
frightening as purchasing the Chrysler Neon in its first year of production.

The PC geeks are on board

aren’t the only ones interested in Blu-ray. Hewlett Packard announced its support for the
new technology in December of 2005, and will be supplying the PC market in the coming
months. Apple Computer and Philips are also on board.

Keep on burnin’

Details have recently leaked about Pioneer’s plans to release a Blu-ray PC drive that will
feature 2x Blu-ray, 8x DVD+R and DVD-R, and 4x DVD-RW and DVD+RW
technology. Expect rewritable CDs, too.

Quality support

Sony and Philips might be the strongest backers of Blu-ray, but other major corporations
have announced future plans to support the technology. Some of these include Apple, Dell
and Panasonic.

Cutting-Edge

This is as good as it gets, at least on paper. There’s no guarantee that Blu-ray will defeat
the (cheaper) competition from HD-DVD, but if the mass of consumers are willing to fork
out the extra money for Blu-ray, then the technology should remain popular for a long
time.

The disadvantages to Blu-Ray discs are that they are quite expensive.

BLU-RAY DISC APPLICATIONS:

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Contents:
- High Definition Television Recording
- High Definition Video Distribution
- High Definition Camcorder Archiving
- Mass Data Storage
- Digital Asset Management and Professional Storage

The Blu-ray Disc format was designed to offer the best performance and features for a
wide variety of applications. High Definition video distribution is one of the key features
of Blu-ray Disc, but the format's versatile design and top-of-the-line specifications mean
that it is suitable for a full range of other purposes as well.

High Definition Television Recording

High Definition broadcasting is vastly expanding in the U.S. and Asia. Consumers are
increasingly making the switch to HDTV sets to enjoy the best possible television
experience. The Blu-ray Disc format offers consumers the ability to record their High
Definition television broadcasts in their original quality for the first time, preserving the
pure picture and audio level as offered by the broadcaster. As such it will become the next
level in home entertainment, offering an unsurpased user experience. And since the Blu-
ray Disc format incorporates the strongest copy protection algorithms of any format or
proposal to date, the format allows for recording of digital broadcasts while meeting the
content protection demands of the broadcast industry.

High Definition Video Distribution

Due to its enormous data capacity of 25 to 50 GB per (single-sided) disc, the Blu-ray Disc
format can store High Definition video in the highest possible quality. Because of the
huge capacity of the disc, there is no need to compromise on picture quality. Depending
on the encoding method, there is room for more than seven hours of the highest HD-
quality video. There is even room for additional content such as special features and other
bonus material to accompany the High Definition movie. Furthermore, the Blu-ray Disc
movie format greatly expands on traditional DVD capabilities, by incorporating many
new interactive features allowing content providers to offer an even more incredible
experience to consumers. An Internet connection may even be used to unlock additional

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material that is stored on the disc, as there is enough room on the disc to include premium
material as well.

High Definition Camcorder Archiving

As the market penetration of High Definition TV sets continues to grow, so does the
demand of consumers to create their own HD recordings. With the advent of the first HD
camcorders, consumers can now for the first time record their own home movies in a
quality level unlike any before. As these camcorders are tape-based, consumers cannot
benefit from the convenience and direct access features they are used to from DVD
players and recorders. Now, the Blu-ray Disc format, with its unprecedented storage
capacity, allows for the HD video recorded with an HD camcorder to be converted and
recorded on a Blu-ray Disc. When the HD content is stored on a Blu-ray Disc, it can be
randomly accessed in a way comparable to DVD. Furthermore, the disc can be safely
stored for many years, without the risk of tape wear.

Mass Data Storage

In its day, CD-R/RW meant a huge increase in storage capacity compared to traditional
storage media with its 650 MB. Then DVD surpassed this amount by offering 4.7 to 8.5
GB of storage, an impressive 5-10 x increase. Now consumers demand an even bigger
storage capacity. The growing number of broadband connections allowing consumers to
download vast amounts of data, as well as the ever increasing audio, video and photo
capabilities of personal computers have led to yet another level in data storage
requirements. In addition, commercial storage requirements are growing exponentially
due to the proliferation of e-mail and the migration to paperless processes. The Blu-ray
Disc format again offers 5-10 x as much capacity as traditional DVD resulting in 25 to 50
GB of data to be stored on a single rewritable or recordable disc. As Blu-ray Disc uses the
same form factor as CD and DVD, this allows for Blu-ray Disc drives that can still read
and write to CD and DVD media as well.

Digital Asset Management and Professional Storage

Due to its high capacity, low cost per GB and extremely versatile ways of transferring
data from one device to another (because of Blu-ray Disc's extremely wide adoption
across the industry), the format is optimized for Digital Asset Management and other
professional applications that require vast amounts of storage space. Think of medical
archives that may contain numerous diagnostic scans in the highest resolution, or catalogs

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of audiovisual assets that need to be instantly retrieved in a random manner, without the
need to "restore" data from a storage carrier. One Blu-ray Disc may replace many backup
tapes, CDs, DVDs or other less common or proprietary storage media. And contrary to
network solutions, the discs can be physically stored in a different location for backup and
safekeeping.

Sony Increasing The Storage Capacity Of Blu-Ray Discs

Sony and Panasonic have announced plans to increase the capacity

of Blu-Ray discs (such as those used by PS3 games) from 25GB to 33.4GB. Hideo
Kojima will be so pleased!

According to a report from Nikkei, the increase comes courtesy of some new ways to
evaluate content on the disc. Or, in more technical terms, is thanks to new partial response
maximum likelihood (PRML) signal processing, which "assumes inter-symbol
interference, which makes it difficult to base optical disc quality evaluation on jitter, as is
widely done now for Blu-ray and many other optical discs".

Now, there's good news, and there's good news. Good news first: this advance will be
compatible with all existing Blu-Ray players, as all that's required is a firmware update.
So the technology will find its way to PS3 games soon enough.
And the good news? The increase applies to all layers of the disc. So as soon as dual-
layered Blu-Ray discs start becoming common, you'll be able to fit 66.8GB of data on a
disc.

Blu-Ray Disc Capacity Now Maxes Out At 100GB

Sharp has recently developed a new technique that has allowed them to stretch the
capacity of a Blu-Ray Disc to 75 and 100Gb’s. Pretty cool eh? Through changing the

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way the discs are manufactured and improvements made upon the laser, Sharp is waiting
for approval from the Blu-Ray Disc Association.

In an attempt to explain the tech specs in basic jargon, Sharp has pioneered a new laser
that reads a new aluminum oxynitride film (dielectric is the old one) coating that allows
the disc to have up to three and four layers instead of the current two, allowing for more
storage.

All of this sounds like progress to me but I have a few questions. How will this affect
Blu-ray players already out in the field? Will this new tech render them useless in the
coming years? That would definitely have a negative effect on early adopters and those
on the fence now in regards to committing to the format.

TDK working on 200GB Blu-ray Disc

After only demoing a prototype 100GB Blu-ray disc in May last year, TDK has
confirmed its plan to develop discs with 200GB storage capacity. The disc would have
four times the capacity of the highest capacity Blu-ray discs currently available. The
100GB BD prototype disc is made up of four data storage layers. It supports a write speed
up to 216MBPS, double that of 50GB BD-Rs. That disc is expected to come to the market
next year.

Manufacturers are now ready to spread 25GB write-once and re-writable Blu-ray discs
around the globe, and they certainly aren't cheap. The single-layer 25GB discs from TDK
will cost $19.99 for write-once and $24.99 for rewritable for example. Later this year the
company hopes to launch 50GB write-once and re-writable media, priced at $47.99 and
$59.99 respectively.

Not many details have been given about 200GB discs, but any expected launch time
frame would be uncertain at least. Presuming the disc would contain eight data storage
layers, it would be a long time before devices that support the discs would appear, as well
as the discs becoming any way affordable to the average consumer.

CONCLUSION:

Blu-ray disc has been a consistent road map to emerging technologies.Blu-ray disc can
store upto 54GB,enough to hold about 4.5hours of high definition video or more than 20

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hrs of standard video.And these are plans in the works to develop a disc with twice that
amount of storage.

Its very likely that the technology will be adopted as the next generation optical disc
format for pc data storage and replace technologies such as DVD+R,DVD+RW and
DVD_RAM.

REFERENCES:

1.www.howstuffworks.com

2.www.bluray.com

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