BluRay Discs

1
Blu-Ray Discs

• By Brian Bland, Christian Bruggeman, John Levidy,
  and Jeffrey Lu

2
Blu-Ray

• The newest commercial optical disc format
• Uses a blue-violet laser with a wavelength of
  405nm
• Single and Dual Layer storage
• Single Layer holds 25GB
• Dual Layer holds 50GB
• Physical dimensions identical to DVD
• The new standard for high-definition digital
  video storage

3
Blu-Ray

• Protective coating is extremely scratch resistant
• Discs originally very sensitive to scratching and
  contamination because data layer was so close to
  the surface
• Theoretical maximum rotating speed is 12x due to
  the inability of the laser to read when the disc
  begins warping
• Uses H.264/AVC or VC1 encoding to increase video
  storage

4
History of Blu-Ray

• The first consumer Blu-Ray player appeared in
  2003
• Disc format was finalized in 2006
• A new polymer made discs more scratch resistant
• First players went on sale in mid-June of 2006
• Included as standard drive in Playstation 3
  systems
• Included a unique anti-copying measure that was
  popular with motion picture studios
• Competed with HD-DVD until February 2008

5
Benefits of Blu-Ray

• Holds nearly 6 times more data than a dual-layer
  DVD
• Uses new compression standards to deliver high
  definition video for new HDTVs
• Features expanded copy-protection technologies to
  decrease piracy
• Typically more-region free
• Only three regions, and many discs are pressed as
  region free

6
Criticisms of Blu-Ray

• More expensive to manufacture
• New dye process allows standard DVD plants to
  more easily convert to Blu-Ray manufacturing
• Players are still fairly expensive
• Not all movies are available on Blu-Ray
• Blu-Ray discs are also still more expensive than
  DVDs

7
Group Opinion

• Blu-Ray offers superior video and audio quality,
  and the added online features offered by the Java
  Virtual Machine are also worthwhile
• As the technology is more widely adopted, the
  price will decrease