The time has come to let the world know about the Blu-ray Disc (BD).

The Blu-ray or Blu-ray Disc (BD) is now known the next generation optical disc format. The current optical technology of HD DVD uses a red laser to write and read data, while the new format rely on a blue-violet laser, that’s why it was named Blu-ray. One of the benefits of using blue-violet laser is that the wavelength is much shorter than a red laser. This makes it possible for a greater precision. The storage capacity is more than five times the storage capacity of HD DVD. It can hold up 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50 GB on a dual-layer disc. The change to 0.85 of the numerical aperture is what enables Blu-ray Discs to hold up to 50GB.There is an advanced video and audio codecs, that can offer you a High Definition experience.

The war is really between Blu-ray, Sony Corp., Walt Disney Co. and News Corp. versus HD DVD, Toshiba Corp., General Electric Co.’s Universal Pictures and Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures. Blu-rays is now being supported by more than one hundred eighty (180) of the world’s leading recording media, music companies, video game, personal computer and consumer electronics. In August last year, DreamWorks Animation and Paramount surprised Hollywood that they would ditch Blu-ray in favor of HD DVD. In exchange for exclusivity, the studios were enticed by millions of dollars in financial incentives in the form of cash and marketing support. During the holiday season, some big retailers offered a price of US$99 for HD DVD players that were snapped up during the Christmas season promotions. With this, consumers purchased more HD DVD players than Blu-ray players. But come to think of it, Blu-rays lead in sales of software.

Buyers of HD DVD players can’t play movies issued in Blu-ray and vice versa, coz’ the two formats are incompatible. This means that high definition movies will be released exclusively in the Blu-ray, and I will therefore conclude that this will be a major blow to rival HD DVD. Can we say that the format war is over? And the winner is the Blu-ray format? The industry is now hungry for a new format that will entice consumers to replace their HD DVD libraries and players with Blu-ray.

The HD DVD sales dropped by 5% in 2006. And I believe that the slowing overall DVD sales, is the sign that the format battle will conclude? Will you bet on Blu-ray or on HD DVD? In my opinion, to date there is still a stalemate since consumers are not yet making decision. The perpetual underdog is HD DVD coz’ there is an attempt that the consumers will update their HD DVD players to new high definition players. Outside the United States, 75% of next generation HD DVD sales goes to Blu-ray in the United Kingdom and more than 90% in Japan.

The focus now is to the remaining studios in the HD DVD camp. Will this really be a battle of format? Or this is a battle of numbers? Can we expect the sudden death of HD DVD?

DVD Anyone?

DVD for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc is a technology for optical storage. It has a bigger capacity, faster and better than Compact Disc that it can hold cinema-like video. This makes DVD an excellent format for movies and high capacity for high-definition computer games and multimedia applications.

DVD offers excellent picture and sound quality with 540 lines of resolution. And with a sampling rate higher and richer sound than with audio Compact Disc.

DVD store information in the form of pits and lands with data compression that is highly efficient. Lands are the smooth spaces between the pits, the raised bumps on the bottom of the disc.DVD player using a laser and a sensor read the pits and lands. Laser scans the underside of the disc, searching for the specific pits and land. The sensor measures how much light is reflected back while the laser bounces off the disc.

A double-layered DVD has another layer of lands and pits embedded below the top layer. This is like air bubbles in an ice cube. Laser is simply refocuses slightly in order to read the other layer.

It is the read head assembly the heart of a DVD player. It contains the lenses, laser and photo sensors that read the lands and pits on a DVD.

My Yamaha DVD Player

Happy viewing to all this 2008!