The History Of Blu-Ray

Blu-ray, is the next-generation optical disc format developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association. The world's leading consumer in electronics, personal computers and media manufacturers. Blu-Ray was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video, as well as storing large amounts of data. This format offers more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs and will hold upto 25GB of data on a single-layer disc and 50GB of data on a dual-layer disc. This extra capacity combined with the use of advanced video and audio codecs offer consumers an unprecedented HD experience.

Current optical disc technologies such as DVD, DVD+R, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM rely on a red laser to read and write data. The new format uses a blue-violet laser instead. Despite the different types of lasers used, Blu-ray products can easily be made backwards compatible with CDs and DVDs through the use of a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical pickup unit.

The benefit of using a blue-violet laser is that it has a shorter wavelength than a red laser, which makes it possible to focus the laser spot with greater precision. This allows data to be packed more tightly and stored in less space, so it's possible to fit more data on the disc even though it's the same size as a CD/DVD.

Blu-ray is now supported by more than 180 of the world's leading Consumer electronic companies. The format also has broad support from the major movie studios. Seven of the eight major movie studios have released movies in the Blu-ray format and six of them are releasing their movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. Many studios have also announced that they will begin releasing new feature films on Blu-ray Disc, as well as a continuous slate of catalog titles every month.