Blu Ray a New Age Optical Media Format
DVD has long overtaken VHS as the medium for recording TV and
pre recorded films. How long will it be before DVD is superseded
by the next development? Capacity is the issue here. The
possibilities in terms of audio and audiovisual quality created
by HDTV will require a medium with greater capacity than can be
afforded by today's DVD disc.
The next generation of recordable media are being developed. Blu
ray disc is currently being developed by a consortium of
companies including Hitachi, LG, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and
Thompson. Dell and Hewlett Packard are also supporting Blu ray
disc technology. Blu ray disc has a capacity of 25GB per layer
compared to DVDs 4.7GB.
This technology is being developed because of this greater
capacity and this is being mainly driven by the expected
explosion of high definition TV. The additional capacity will be
nessercary to capture the enhanced quality feature of HDTV
At present Sony has launched a Blu ray recorder onto the
Japanese market specifically for recording HDTV.
In parallel Toshiba and NEC are developing a rival format HD
DVD, which although has less capacity than Blu ray (15GB) but
the HD DVD is similar to Blu ray but the physical properties are
closer to current DVDs and can be replicated on existing
machinery. Blu ray on the other hand requires new manufacturing
equipment.
Whether HD DVD or Blu ray disc become the established protocol
remains to be seen, but either one could become the industry
standard over the next few years.