Blu-ray Disc

When the CD was introduced in the early '80s, it meant an enormous leap from traditional media. Not only did it offer a significant improvement in audio quality, its primary application, but its 650 MB storage capacity also meant a giant leap in data storage and retrieval. For the first time, there was a universal standard for pre-recorded, recordable and rewritable media, offering the best quality and features consumers could wish for themselves, at very low costs.

Although the CD was a very useful medium for the recording and distribution of audio and some modest data applications, demand for a new medium offering higher storage capacities rose in the '90s. These demands lead to the evolution of the DVD specification and a 5-10 x increase in capacity. This enabled high quality, standard definition video distribution and recording. Furthermore, the increased capacity accommodated more demanding data applications. At the same time, the DVD spec used the same form factor as the CD, allowing for seamless migration to the next generation format and offering full backwards compatibility.

Now, in the next millennium, high definition video idemands a new solution. History proved that a significant 5-10 x increase in storage capacity and the ability to play previous generation formats are key elements for a new format to succeed. This new format has arrived with the advent of Blu-ray Disc, the only format that offers a considerable increase in storage capacity with its 25 to 50 GB data capacity. This allows for the next big application of optical media: the distribution and recording of high definition video in the highest possible quality. In fact, no other proposed format can offer the data capacity of Blu-ray Disc, and no other format will allow for the same high video quality and interactive features to create the ultimate user experience. As with DVD, the Blu-ray Disc format is based on the same, bare disc physical form factor, allowing for compatibility with CD and DVD.

Blu-ray Disc Applications

The Blu-ray Disc format was designed to offer the best performance and features for a wide variety of applications. High Definition video distribution is one of the key features of Blu-ray Disc, but the format's versatile design and top-of-the-line specifications mean that it is suitable for a full range of other purposes as well.

High Definition Television Recording

High Definition broadcasting is vastly expanding in the U.S. and Asia. Consumers are increasingly making the switch to HDTV sets to enjoy the best possible television experience. The Blu-ray Disc format offers consumers the ability to record their High Definition television broadcasts in their original quality for the first time, preserving the pure picture and audio level as offered by the broadcaster. As such it will become the next level in home entertainment, offering an unsurpased user experience. And since the Blu-ray Disc format incorporates the strongest copy protection algorithms of any format or proposal to date, the format allows for recording of digital broadcasts while meeting the content protection demands of the broadcast industry.

High Definition Video Distribution

Due to its enormous data capacity of 25 to 50 GB per (single-sided) disc, the Blu-ray Disc format can store High Definition video in the highest possible quality. Because of the huge capacity of the disc, there is no need to compromise on picture quality. Depending on the encoding method, there is room for more than seven hours of the highest HD-quality video. There is even room for additional content such as special features and other bonus material to accompany the High Definition movie. Furthermore, the Blu-ray Disc movie format greatly expands on traditional DVD capabilities, by incorporating many new interactive features allowing content providers to offer an even more incredible experience to consumers. An Internet connection may even be used to unlock additional material that is stored on the disc, as there is enough room on the disc to include premium material as well.

High Definition Camcorder Archiving

As the market penetration of High Definition TV sets continues to grow, so does the demand of consumers to create their own HD recordings. With the advent of the first HD camcorders, consumers can now for the first time record their own home movies in a quality level unlike any before. As these camcorders are tape-based, consumers cannot benefit from the convenience and direct access features they are used to from DVD players and recorders. Now, the Blu-ray Disc format, with its unprecedented storage capacity, allows for the HD video recorded with an HD camcorder to be converted and recorded on a Blu-ray Disc. When the HD content is stored on a Blu-ray Disc, it can be randomly accessed in a way comparable to DVD. Furthermore, the disc can be safely stored for many years, without the risk of tape wear.

Hitachi’s First Blu-ray Camcorder

Mass Data Storage

In its day, CD-R/RW meant a huge increase in storage capacity compared to traditional storage media with its 650 MB. Then DVD surpassed this amount by offering 4.7 to 8.5 GB of storage, an impressive 5-10 x increase. Now consumers demand an even bigger storage capacity. The growing number of broadband connections allowing consumers to download vast amounts of data, as well as the ever increasing audio, video and photo capabilities of personal computers have led to yet another level in data storage requirements. In addition, commercial storage requirements are growing exponentially due to the proliferation of e-mail and the migration to paperless processes. The Blu-ray Disc format again offers 5-10 x as much capacity as traditional DVD resulting in 25 to 50 GB of data to be stored on a single rewritable or recordable disc. As Blu-ray Disc uses the same form factor as CD and DVD, this allows for Blu-ray Disc drives that can still read and write to CD and DVD media as well.

Digital Asset Management and Professional Storage

Due to its high capacity, low cost per GB and extremely versatile ways of transferring data from one device to another (because of Blu-ray Disc's extremely wide adoption across the industry), the format is optimized for Digital Asset Management and other professional applications that require vast amounts of storage space. Think of medical archives that may contain numerous diagnostic scans in the highest resolution, or catalogs of audiovisual assets that need to be instantly retrieved in a random manner, without the need to "restore" data from a storage carrier. One Blu-ray Disc may replace many backup tapes, CDs, DVDs or other less common or proprietary storage media. And contrary to network solutions, the discs can be physically stored in a different location for backup and safekeeping.

Benefits of Blu-ray Disc

Consumer Electronics Manufacturers

The consumer electronics industry is rapidly migrating toward High Definition. In the U.S., over seven million digital televisions (DTVs) have already been sold. Demand for HD programming is rapidly growing. Industry analysts predict that DTV will be established in the U.S. by 2005, with 85% household penetration by 2010.

In this light, consumers will demand playback and recording equipment giving them the most benefits from their High Definition television sets. Blu-ray Disc offers the best of both worlds. It is the ideal content delivery system for pre-recorded media, while, at the same time, featuring the most advanced recording capability for owners of HDTVs. In fact, only Blu-ray Disc, due to its enormous storage capacity, allows consumers to record large amounts of High Definition broadcasts in the absolute best quality, retaining all the details from the original.

Likewise, increased popularity of Blu-ray Disc will likely stimulate awareness and sales of High Definition TV sets. As more and more enriched content or special editions become available exclusively on Blu-ray Disc, this will drive consumers toward the adoption of HDTV, even in areas with little High Definition broadcasts, such as Europe.

Blu-ray Disc is supported by all major consumer electronics companies from Europe, Japan and Korea, including Hitachi, LG Electronics, Matsushita (Panasonic), Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and Thomson/RCA. This will help accelerate the widespread adoption of the format in the consumer electronics world.

PC and PC Peripheral Manufacturers

Due to ever-increasing file sizes and the constantly growing adoption of such applications as digital music, photo and video storage on PCs, consumers constantly demand larger storage capacities. Broadband connections allow for the downloading of vast amounts of data, and increasing developments in digital photo and video equipment not only raises quality requirements, but also the amount of memory that is necessary to store content. In addition, commercial storage requirements are increasing exponentially with the proliferation of e-mail, the migration to paperless processes, and the movement to archive documents. Backing up all of this data is becoming a costly necessity in business.

Although CDs and DVDs can fill a substantial portion of the market for data storage, consumers and businesses are demanding larger capacities without the need to abandon their existing collection of pre-recorded and home-recorded media or backup data storage. Blu-ray Disc is the solution to this growing need. Offering 25 to 50 GB of data on a single-sided disc, and boasting a physical size identical to that of today's DVD, storage needs will be solved for many years to come. A Blu-ray Disc is also a very economical storage medium, offering the lowest cost per GB. What's more: a Blu-ray Disc drive in a PC is also likely to allow reading from and recording to CD and DVD media, making Blu-ray Disc the ideal upgrade.

PC drive vendors will be able to sell Blu-ray Disc drives in the after-market, enabling consumers to upgrade their existing PCs to take advantage of the larger storage capacity offered by the format. Likewise, PC vendors can equip their PCs with a Blu-ray Disc drive as a line-fitted solution, to make their products stand out of the crowd.

The world's two largest computer companies, HP and Dell, have adopted the Blu-ray Disc format, offering it as a line-fitted option in their top-of-the-line models. As line-fitted drives in PCs currently make up for about 75% of DVD drives sold, such a widespread adoption in the IT industry will boost acceptance of the Blu-ray Disc format.

Media Manufacturers

Media manufacturers, both active in blank media (recordable and rewritable) and pre-recorded media (used to distribute software, movies and other content on ROM discs) will enjoy great benefits by taking up production of Blu-ray Disc media. As the Blu-ray Disc format is supported by almost all consumer electronics manufacturers in the world, as well as the world's two largest IT companies, there will be an enormous boost of Blu-ray Disc players, recorders and drives, greatly accelerating demand for Blu-ray Disc media.

It is expected that, at the same output levels, production costs for Blu-ray Discs are about 10% higher than DVD per disc. Compared to other format proposals, a production line can produce more Blu-ray Discs per hour than HD-DVDs, due to the curing times required for the dyes (HD-DVD requires two as it is in essence a double-sided disc). This results in increased productivity and lower costs per disc. Investment costs to convert a DVD production line to Blu-ray Disc are expected to be comparable to the change from CD to DVD.

One of the major design goals of Blu-ray Disc is that the format should be viable for at least 10 to 15 years. For this, a major leap in storage capacity was needed, and this has been achieved in the form of 25 to 50 GB disc capacity. Other formats might require less initial investment fees due to their similarities with DVD (although similarity with DVD also involved extra costs due the bonding process, as explained above), but they are not likely to last as long as Blu-ray Disc. This would require an additional change in the production lines as soon as the format becomes outdated and newer formats appear, overall resulting in much higher investment costs.

Content Providers

With the emerging trend of HDTVs becoming more common, and consumers getting used to High Definition quality and expecting the same from their pre-recorded media, the logical next step is the distribution of packaged media in HD format. Blu-ray Disc is the ideal format to suit this need.

Due to its huge capacity, the Blu-ray Disc format not only allows for a movie to be stored in the absolute best High Definition quality on a disc, but it also offers room for additional extras such as making of and special features. Blu-ray Disc even offers the room to store these extras in HD quality as well. There's no need to pack an additional disc to store these bonus materials, thereby eliminating costs for content providers and simplifying the end-user experience.

The large capacity of Blu-ray Disc may also be utilized to create discs with large amounts of material in standard definition quality, such as TV shows. Where a typical season of a TV show required multiple disc sets, entire series can now be stored on one Blu-ray Disc (for example: Seinfeld - Seasons 1-3, 40 episodes requires eight DVD's. This could fit on one or two BDs depending upon bonus content).

What's more, the capacity and the enhanced interactive and network features of the Blu-ray Disc for Movie Distribution format also offers new and unprecedented features. For example, additional video material may be stored on the disc in a "locked" way, only accessible to users who have been authorized to do so after an online payment procedure. Additionally, users might be able to make direct purchases of merchandise related to the disc's content, such as sequel discs or theater tickets. The interactive features of Blu-ray Disc go way beyond those offered by DVD-Video, adding additional value to a title release on Blu-ray Disc.

Lastly, although the Blu-ray Disc format does incorporate advanced codecs, it provides enough room to use the MPEG-2 format for encoding of High Definition images at a high bitrate. As MPEG-2 is the de facto industry standard used for DVD, digital broadcasting, HDTV and most other industry areas involving digital video, there is very broad industry support for MPEG-2 authoring equipment.

Refer to the Blu-ray Disc Key Characteristics section for more information about the production costs of a Blu-ray Disc and the unmatched copy protection features of the Blu-ray Disc format.

Blu-ray Disc and DVD

Just as DVD meant a five to ten time increase in storage capacity compared to CD, Blu-ray Disc will increase DVD capacity by five to ten times. This is due, among other reasons, to the usage of a blue instead of a red laser and improved lens specifications, allowing for a much smaller focus laser beam which enables the recording of much smaller and higher density pits on the disc.

Due to the fact that the data layer on a Blu-ray Disc is placed much "closer" to the laser lens than in DVD (or even the HD-DVD proposal), there is less distortion resulting in significantly improved tolerances. Hence, more precision and ultra high storage densities are made possible.

As a result of Blu-ray Disc being manufactured as a single substrate disc comparable to CD, but unlike DVD (and the HD-DVD proposal), the manufacturing process does not involve the bonding of two substrates, resulting in less production material, a shorter production time and hence lower production costs per disc.

Blu-ray Disc has the same physical characteristics as DVD and CD, and like its predecessors, it also does not require a cartridge. This makes it possible to create Blu-ray Disc products that are backwards compatible with CD and DVD, allowing for a seamless transition to the new technology. Likewise, the technology is perfectly suitable for integration in small form factor equipment, like notebook computers.