Blu-ray is an optical disc format which is set to rival HD-DVDin the race to be the de-facto standard storage medium for HDTV.
The HD-DVD vs Blu-ray battle resembles that between Betamax and VHS and DVD+RW and DVD-RW.
Currently, the major Hollywood film studios are split evenly in their support for Blu-ray and HD-DVD, but most of the electronics industry is currently in the blue corner.
The key difference between these new players and recorders and current optical disc technology is that Blu-ray, as its name suggests, uses a blue-violet laser to read and write data rather than a red one.
Blue light has a shorter wavelength than red light, and according to the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), which is made up of, amongst others, Sony, Philips, Panasonic, and Pioneer, this means that the laser spot can be focused with greater precision.
Blu-ray discs have a maximum capacity of 25GB and dual-layer discs can hold up to 50GB – enough for four hours of HDTV. Like HD-DVD, Blue laser discs don’t require a caddy and the players and recorders will be able to play current DVD discs. Codecs supported by Blu-ray include the H.264 MPEG-4 codec which will form part of Apple’s QuickTime, and the Windows Media player based VC-1.
Kenny Hemphill is the editor and publisher of The HDTV Tuner – a guide to the kit, the technology and the programming on HDTV.
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