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Co-authored by: 17-inch Neoprene Bags. The optical disk technology has by far reached its potential in today’s world. An optical disk is a medium used for data storage and an optical drive is what’s used to read these disks and also to write on them. The Blue ray disk is very much different from a normal DVD and consists of a ferromagnetic material that is sealed with a plastic coating. There are various types of optical disk drives in the market but the most recent one’s to have captured the consumer electronic market are the Blue ray drives.

A single-layer Blue ray disk can store around 25GB and a dual-layer disk can store 50GB. This storage space is way higher than a normal DVD. Blue ray drives are needed to read and write data on to a Blue ray disk.

Blue ray drives work in a very different way than other disks that we all know. The Blue ray drives actually have a laser inside that helps the reading and writing of data more understandable for the computer. During the whole disk reading process, a laser beam is projected on the disk. This reflects a light. The light changes according to the different effects of the magneto-optical Kerr.

The BDA, also known as the Blue ray Disk Association consist of some of the well known consumer electronic giants. According to them almost all Blue ray drives should be capable of reading the traditional type of DVD’s and CD’s. This is known as backward compatibility.

Although many consumers still use the standard DVD’s and CD’s to watch movies and listen to songs, the Blue ray disk format has gained more popularity over time. Blue ray disks come with more storage space and higher quality than a normal DVD, making it more useful for people who want to get a cinematic experience right at their home.

In the early days where the Blue ray technology was at its initial stage, a few manufacturers used to make products that had Blue ray DVD players and Blue ray drives which could play only DVD’s and not CD’s. But today, the new advancements have changed the Blue ray drives making it possible for the backward compatibility.

Having a high storage space compared to other disks is one of the biggest advantages the Blue ray disk has. Due to the increase of sales, manufacturers of desktop computers and laptops have incorporated Blue ray drives into them. Many computer systems are shipped with the Blue ray drives installed in them. The Sony Playstation-3 was one of the first to use the Blue ray technology.

For manufacturers of traditional DVD’s and CD’s, the Blue ray disk has come up as a major competitor, enveloping most of its customers. After all who would want a DVD with low storage space when a Blue ray disk can be purchased with higher storage space and more features?

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Co-published by: Neoprene Laptop Shuttles. This future optical disc format – BRD (Blue Ray DVDs is a remarkable invention of the BDA (Blu Ray Disc Association) that consists of TDK, Thomson, Sharp, Pioneer, Philips, Mitsubishi, Sony, JVC, Panasonic, Samsung, Apple, Hitachi, LG, Dell and HP).  The BDA boasts 180 of the world's leading consumer electronics, media and personal computer manufacturers.

The days of DVDs are numbered. The necessity for storing HD content is increasing daily in the light of increasing number of people turning to HD television for their latest digital television fare. 

But, DVDs support a resolution up to 720×480 pixels while high definition content resolutions are as high as 1920×1080 pixels. HD video content uses up a considerable amount of hard drive space too.  Two hours of HD content with data compression necessitates up to 22 GB of storage space while a DVD-18 disc (dual-sided dual-layer disc) has a storage capacity of only 17GB.

The solution to this problem has let to the development of two technologies – HD DVD and Blue Ray DVDs – that are now in fierce competition with each to gain market share and become the successor of the DVD. 

Both these technologies are very similar in nature but the blue ray DVDs have an advantage since these boast a far higher storage capacity than the HD DVD. As the name denotes, the blue ray discs make use of a blue-violet laser to write and read data in contrast to the existing technology which makes use of red laser.  A blue-violet laser (405nm) has a far shorter wavelength than a red laser (650nm) making it feasible to focus the laser spot with superior precision.  The plus point in this is that as the data could be packed compactly it uses less space to store data and that fact lets users to add more data on the disc though the size of the disc is more or less the same as a CD/DVD.

A single-layer high definition DVD can hold only fifteen GB of data whilst single-layer blue ray DVDs can hold twenty-five GB which amounts to over two hours of HD video and thirteen hours of normal video. A dual-layer HD-DVD can hold up to 30 GB whereas dual-layer blue ray DVDs can store 54 GB which is 4.5hours of high-definition video and more than 20hours of a standard video.

Blue ray DVDs are also light on the manufacturers since these are built by injection-molding process on a single 1.1-mm disc compared to the traditional injection-molding process on a 0.6 mm (HD DVD follow the same method) which thereby reduces costs.  This savings balances out the expenses of adding the protective layer required on blue ray DVDs which means that the end price cannot be very different from the price of a regular DVD.

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