What is Blu-ray?

Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD), is the name of a next-generation optical disc format designed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD). High-definition video is the industry’s next highly sought after technology which brings much better picture resolution and clarity into the homes of consumers. However, with the advent of HD video there is a need for bigger and better optical storage solutions due to the fact that today’s DVD simply doesn’t have enough space for HD video. It might be hard for one to imagine that 4.7GB (the amount a single-layer DVD can hold) wouldn’t be more than enough for any purpose but Moore’s law has once again reared its head.

The Blu-ray format will provide consumers with a new optical disc capable of holding up to 27GB on a single-layer disc and 54GB on a dual-layer disc. An estimation that 1 hour of HD video is around 12GB in size means that the single-layer Blu-ray Disc could hold a little over 2 hours of HD video and the 54GB could hold around 4.5 hours of HD video. It seems that even with its massive capacity, the single-layer Blu-ray disc wouldn’t be able to hold longer movies like Lord of the Rings which is around 3 hours in length. Blue-ray also has many other advantages over the traditional DVD like the ability to instantly skip to any spot on the disc, record one program while watching another on the disc, edit or reorder programs recorded on the disc, and even access the internet to download subtitles and other extra features.