What Is Blu-ray? No, It's Not A Creature Of The Deep Or Any Mythical Beast. Blu-ray Is A Third-generation Digital Media Or Data Storage Technology From The Blu-ray Disc Association, An Assembly Of Corporate Media And Electronics Technology Leaders. Blu-ray Discs Are Currently Competing With HD-DVD To Become The New Optical Disc Format. They Have Much More Storage Capacities And Data Transfer Speeds Than Conventional DVD's And CD's.Blu-ray Disc Versus Other Optical DiscsA Blu-ray Disc, Looks Much Like Any Other Optical Disc, Including First-generation CDs, Second-generation DVDs, And The Competing Third-generation HD DVDs.A Blu-ray Disc System Uses A Blue-violet Laser With A Wavelength Of 405 Nanometers To Write And Read Data On The Optical Disc. This Laser Is The Source Of Blu-rays Name And The Technology Which Differentiates Blu-ray From Previous Generation Optical Media. The 405 Nanometer Blue-violet Laser Is Also Used For Writing And Reading Data On Third-generation HD DVD Discs, Which Have Smaller Data Storage Capacity Per Layer. Older Optical Media Require A Red Laser For Data Storage And Retrieval.Blu-ray Storage CapacityThe Blu-ray Disc System Uses A Shorter Wavelength Than Conventional Optical Discs (CD Systems Use A Red Laser With A Wavelength Of 780 Nanometers Whereas DVD Systems Use The Same Red Laser With A Wavelength Of 650 Nanometers). The Shorter Wavelength Means More Precise Data Recording, Which Allows More Data To Be Packed On The Blu-ray Disc Surface Than A Comparable CD Or DVD Surface. In Fact, A Standard Single-layer Blu-ray Disc Can Store As Much As 25 GB Of Digital Data, More Than Five Times The Storage Capacity Of Conventional DVDs. A Dual-layer Blu-ray Disc Can Store A Maximum Of 50 GB Of Digital Data. On The Drawing Board Are Quadruple-layer Blu-ray Discs With 100 GB Digital Data Storage Capacities.Blu-ray SupportTo Enjoy The Considerable Benefits Of A Blu-ray Disc, One Must Have A Blu-ray Disc Player (either Standalone Or Software-based) That Supports Reading Of The Blu-ray Disc. Blu-ray Video Players Need To Have An MPEG-2 Codec (which Makes A Player Capable Of Playing DVDs And HD DVDs), A VC-1 Codec, And An AVC Or MPEG-4 Codec. Movies Stored In Blu-ray Discs Will Use Any One Of The Above-mentioned Codecs. One Movie Can Also Have More Than One Codec, As Long As Each Codec Used Is Supported By Blu-ray Technology.This Article May Be Republished Freely As Long As This Copyright Notice And Box Of Resource Links Are Included At The Bottom.Copyright 2007 MALIBAL, LLc
