Introduction

Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD) is the name of a next-generation optical disc format. The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD). The format is also likely to become a standard for PC data storage and high-definition movies in the future.

The name Blu-ray is derived from the underlying technology, which utilizes a blue-violet laser to read and write data. The name is a combination of "Blue" and optical ray "Ray". According to the Blu-ray Disc Association, the spelling of "Blu-ray" is not a mistake. The character "e" is intentionally left out because a daily- used term can't be registered as a trademark.

The format was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Founders (BDF), a group of eleven leading consumer electronics companies:

Hitachi, Ltd.
LG Electronics Inc.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Pioneer Corporation
Royal Philips Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Sharp Corporation
Sony Corporation
TDK Corporation
Thomson Multimedia

In January 2004, the world's two largest PC manufacturers, HP and Dell, were accepted into the group to help further develop the format for PC data storage. The group is currently re-incorporating itself into the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), which will be open to companies that wish to help develop, promote and establish Blu-ray as an industry standard for high-definition optical storage.

As with conventional CDs and DVDs, Blu-ray plans to provide a wide range of formats including ROM/R/RW. The following formats are part of the Blu-ray Disc specification v1.0:

BD-ROM, which is a read-only format developed for pre-recorded content.
BD-R, which is a recordable format developed for PC data storage.
BD-RW, which is a rewritable format developed for PC data storage.
BD-RE, which is a rewritable format developed for HDTV recording.

A single-layer disc can fit 23.3GB, 25GB or 27GB.
A dual-layer disc can fit 46.6GB, 50GB or 54GB.

There's also research going on to develop 100GB quad-layer discs (25GB per layer).

Over 2 hours of high-definition television (HDTV) on a 25GB disc.
About 13 hours of standard-definition television (SDTV) on a 25GB disc.

According to the Blu-ray Disc v1.0 specification, 1x speed will require a 36Mbps data transfer rate, which means it will take about 1 hour and 33 minutes to record 25GB. The Blu-ray Disc Association are currently working on the v2.0 specification, which will support 2x speed to cut the time it takes to copy content from one disc to another in half. In the future, the data transfer rate is expected to be raised to 8x or more.

The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) is still in the process of finalizing the BD-ROM specification, but they have stated that MPEG-4 AVC High Profile (previously called FRExt) and Microsoft's VC-1 video codec (the proposed SMPTE standard based on WMV9) will be mandatory. They will also include MPEG-2 support for playback of HDTV recordings and DVDs. The BDA expects the BD-ROM specification to be finished by the end of the year. Please note that this simply means that all Blu-ray players and recorders will have to support playback of these video codecs, it will still be up to the movie studios to decide which video codec(s) they use for their releases.

The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) still hasn't made a final decision about what audio codecs will be included in the specification, but according to the BDF technical spokesman Richard Doherty, the included audio codecs should offer a significant improvement over the audio formats supported by the current DVD spec. They are currently looking into advanced audio codecs, including lossless codecs.

No, the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) and TDK has successfully developed a new hard-coating technology that will make the discs even more resistant to scratches and fingerprints than existing DVDs, without requiring a cartridge to protect the discs. This development will enable manufacturers to downsize PC drives and lower their overall media production costs.

You'll probably have to wait until 2005-2006 for Blu-ray recorders to become commonly available. The driving force behind the development of Blu -ray Disc recorders is the need to record HDTV programming and currently the only country where HDTV is well established is Japan. There's still only two different Blu-ray Disc recorders available to consumers in Japan (the Sony BDZ-S77 and Panasonic DMR-E700BD), but as you can see in our Blu-ray Recorders section, most well-known consumer electronics companies have their own prototype Blu-ray Disc recorder in development, so we expect to see more Blu-ray recorders on the Japanese market during 2004.

According to Sony of America's senior vice president Mike Fidler, products based on the Blu-ray Disc format are not likely to be available in the United States until late 2005 or early 2006. However, LG Electronics has stated that they have plans to introduce a Blu-ray Disc recorder in the United States in the third quarter of 2004.

As with any new technology, the first generation of Blu-ray Disc recorders will be very expensive, but the prices have already begun falling. The Sony BDZ-S77 is currently priced at 223,000 yen ($2,039), while the Panasonic DMR- E700BD is priced at 198,000 yen ($1,810). The discs required to record high-definition video are priced at about 2,700 yen ($25) per disc. The explanation for the high retail price is that the recorder is targetted for businesses and enthusiasts rather than consumers.

According to the Blu-ray Disc Association, the overall cost of manufacturing a Blu-ray Disc will in the end be no more expensive than producing a DVD. The reduced injection molding costs offset the additional cost of applying the cover layer and hard coat, while the techniques used for applying the recording layer remain the same. As soon as manufacturers start mass production of blue-laser components, which is expected to begin in 2004, the production costs should fall and eventually be within 10% of DVDs.

Current technology

Yes, that's the expectation. The Blu-ray Disc recorder represents a major leap forward in video recording technology as it enables recording of high-definition television (HDTV). It also offers a lot of new innovative features not possible with a traditional VCR:

It's still too early to say. In the end it's up to the movie studios to decide in what format they release their movies, so they will play a big part in the decision of which format becomes the standard for high- definition movies and the successor to DVD. However, they are still earning good money from sales of DVDs, so they aren't in a hurry to adopt a new format for movies. They will probably hold off on introducing movies in high-definition until 2006-2007, as they speculate that the DVD market will continue to grow until then. The only movie studio to publically support any blue-laser based format so far is Columbia TriStar, who has stated that they will release movies in the Blu-ray format.

Yes, several leading drive manufacturers have already demonstrated drives for consumer products such as video recorders that can read and write DVD and Blu-ray Discs, so you don't have to worry about your existing DVD collection becoming obsolete. Although there is no requirement for Blu-ray recorders to be backwards compatible with DVD, the format is far too popular to not be supported. With the vast amount of Blu-ray recorders that will be coming out, this will be an important feature for consumers.

There are plans for BD-ROM (read-only), BD-R (recordable) and BD-RW (rewritable) drives for PCs, and with the support of the worlds two largest PC manufacturers, HP and Dell, it's 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+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM.

Next-generation technology

No, HD-DVD (previously known as AOD) is the name of a competing next-generation optical disc format developed by Toshiba and NEC. The format is quite different from Blu-ray, but also relies heavily on blue-laser technology to achieve a higher storage capacity. The read-only discs (HD DVD-ROM) will hold 15GB and 30GB, the rewritable discs (HD DVD-RW) will hold 20GB and 32GB, while the recordable discs (HD DVD-R) won't support dual-layer discs, so they will be limited to 15GB. The format is being developed within the DVD Forum as a possible successor to the current DVD technology.