This month, we’ll look at the consumer end of things.  Movies on disc have been around for years.  To see films in high definition usually requires a Blu-ray disc, and a Blu-ray player.  Although the original movie isn’t changed, the actual film is re-captured at 1080P resolution – more than four times as high as a standard 480p DVD.  The difference between a DVD and the same movie in Blu-ray is often amazing.

Blu-ray players have been around for a few years.  Prices have dropped.  In fact, some retailers throw in a Blu-ray player with the purchase of a particular High Definition television.  This demonstrates a few things – to get the most out of an HDTV, you need good source media to show it (a Blu-ray disc in a Blu-ray player, connected via HDMI) and there are some models of Blu-ray players that are inexpensive enough that they can be bundled in with HDTVs.

These ‘inexpensive’ Blu-ray players – last year’s model, perhaps – often do little more than play Blu-ray discs.  And for many, last year, that was enough.   The makers of consumer electronic products (and most manufacturers of any appliance) continue to add features to products so that the consumer will buy the latest and greatest, setting last year’s perfectly good product aside.

Today, the big deal is Internet connectivity.  Here’s where a feature makes sense.  Internet connectivity lets you connect to a service like Netflix, or such websites as Hulu, Fancast or others, that let you stream video directly to your television.  Netflix offers high def packages that give you High Definitionmovies and shows for a monthly fee.  Many of the Internet-connectable Blu-ray players come with a few of the streaming sites already pre-programmed in.

A problem with the first crop of Internet connectable players was that they weren’t wireless.  An Ethernet cable had to be plugged in – and in many cases, it wasn’t convenient to bring a cable to the player.  Some models also now come ‘wireless ready.’  These can be paired with an optional (extra cost) device that lets the player talk over Wi-Fi to a Wi-Fi router or access point.  Probably the most useful, if Wi-Fi is available in your video room, are the models with Wi-Fi actually built into the player.  The cost of the units with Wi-Fi integrated into the player may not be much different from the ‘wireless ready’ model and the adapter.

With Wi-Fi capabilities being built into the high end Blu-ray players, it makes one wonder: what’s next?  It probably wouldn’t be too surprising to see a keyboard, mouse, and full browser functionality in a generation or two of new Blu-ray players.

We look forward to YOUR predictions, so please feel free to leave a comment or two.

He drove his backup copy of the movie from San Diego to Santa Barbara, a drive that takes four to five hours.  Meanwhile, at the theater, the coordinators of the preview were in a panic.  The hard drive that stored the movie had crashed.  They weren’t able to bring it back, and may have to cancel the special screening.

They hadn’t figured on my colleague.  He arrived an hour or so before the screening was scheduled to be projected.  The data on my colleague’s Blu-ray disk contained the entire film, in a format that contained more data than a typical Blu-ray movie.  Although the projector wasn’t able to read the data on the Blu-ray disc he brought, using the notebook computer and an external Blu-ray drive that he brought with him, he was able to transfer the data from the Blu-ray disc onto the projector’s hard drive, and the projector was able to take that data and project the film.

The audience had no idea of the travails that the producers had felt just a short time before showtime.  The screening ran without a hitch.   And it would have been disastrous without that Blu-ray data disc, with the entire film recorded onto it.

A few interesting notes:  Had the film been recorded so that it was cut into two or more pieces (for example, if they had tried to record the film onto a stack of DVDs), it may have been very difficult to seamlessly stitch each piece of the film together in high enough quality to be able to show the entire film, without interruptions or breaks between discs.   Having the ability to record up to 50 GB now (and as much as 125 GB in the near future) onto a single piece of media enabled the recording of a single, very large file, unbroken, onto the medium.   Using the recordable Blu-ray Disc as if it was just another Blu-ray video wouldn’t have worked – the film quality video required even more data than High Def provides.

Although the film probably could have been copied onto a 64 gigabyte Flash drive (costing somewhere around $100), by comparison, a relatively cheap recordable 50 GB disc empowered my colleague, enabling him to less expensively record and transport a new copy of the film.  The benefits enjoyed by being able to transfer very large data files can easily be applied to IT and the Enterprise, who frequently has to back up, store, or transport very large data, e-mail, or other files.  Blu-ray is an excellent medium for data storage and transport.  It’s smaller and lighter than external hard drives, it’s less expensive per gigabyte than similar sized flash drives, and it can be read by pretty much any computer in which a Blu-ray drive is installed, or to which an external Blu-ray drive is attached.

As a storage medium, the Blu-ray disc appears to be riding an acceptance curve similar to the one of its predecessors – CD and DVD media.  When the CD first came out, in the 1980s, it was seen as a format for distributing audio files. The use of the CD as one for distribution of programs and data took years to develop.  At the end of the 1980s, CD-Recorders sold for around $2000, and a 700 megabyte blank disk cost $10 or more.  Successfully recording a usable CD-R disc was not a foregone conclusion – so the cost of creating ONE usable disc may have run closer to $20, $30 or more dollars.    Today, of course, CD-recordability is built into the DVD drives in most computers, or into aftermarket drives that may cost as little as $20.  And blank CD media costs just pennies.

The DVD followed a similar path, with the medium used initially for distribution of video.  However, the industry was aware of the potential for using the medium for data storage.  It still took some time for the recorders to become affordable, and for the cost of blank media to become more affordable.  The industry struggled with the –R/+R debate for a while, and eventually settled on allowing the recorder to sort things out.  As noted above, drives can be purchased for much less than $100.  Inexpensive media can cost pennies, quality media costs slightly more, but may provide more scratch resistance, be less prone to errors, and be generally worth the price difference when a quality recording is needed.

Today, floppy drives are disappearing from computers – files can be easily transferred by recording them onto CD or DVD, or copying onto a flash drive.

Blu-ray is still often perceived as a medium for distributing high definition video.  Its use as a storage medium is just beginning to be appreciated.  The most commonly available Blu-ray drives in computers are BD-ROM drives, which can read data and videos, but lack the ability to write to them.  The multiple formats for recordable Blu-ray were already explored in earlier blogs.

However, it should be clear that there is significant potential for use of the Blu-ray disc for recording as much as 50 GB today, and with new technologies proposed earlier this year, the ability to record up to 125 GB on a single piece of media.   Although the drives at first won’t be priced for consumer use, economies of scale will inevitably bring down the price of drives and media.

Although an IT organization may not initially consider that it needs to often record 50 GB of data or other materials onto a single disc, the need for this will undoubtedly be appreciated once the technology becomes better publicized and more available.  Giving an organization the ability to create a bootable image of each of its servers and workstations, and store them compactly, in anticipation of a disaster, drive crash, or worse, can help reduce the risk of business loss.  As an adjunct to disk or tape backup, re-writable Blu-ray discs may prove to be a viable addition to a company’s disaster recovery strategy.  (Add to this the fact that, because a Blu-ray disc is a random access medium, restoring files from the disc can be much faster than a similar restore from tape).

Clearly, the issue with Blu-ray disc as being more than just a distribution medium for high definition video hasn’t been explored effectively enough.   Clearly, it will…..

In previous posts, we explored the many different alphabetic designations that could apply to Blu-ray discs and the drives that could read, read and write to them.  We looked at BD-ROM, Combo Drives, BD-R and BD-RW, and looked at the many different types of erasable media (and drives) available.  We looked at single layer (25 GB) and double layer (50 GB) media, at write once and at erasable discs.

The last post looked at some of the proposed formats for the future, which expanded from single and double layer up to 4 layer (100 GB) and beyond — all the way up to 128 GB.  We looked at some of the uses of these larger (by 2010 standards) discs, and explained that this new standard may require new hardware to read and write to the new discs.   And we hinted at yet another proposed standard – the IH-BD disc.

IH-BD – our last acronym (for now)

The Intra-hybrid Blu-ray disc puts a new twist on the double layer (50 GB) Blu-ray disc.  Instead of providing media that features two layers that are either record once, or erasable, the IH-BD gives you one BD-ROM layer, and a second BD-RE (recordable/erasable) layer.   What this means is that you’ll be able to record data that can’t be modified, onto one layer, and have the ability to record and change the data on the second layer.  So far, there doesn’t appear to be much value to that — but wait.

Imagine that you work at a company that manufactures a large variety of products.  Your basic catalog, including data sheets, images, video demonstrations, and other materials can fill most of a single layer of an IH-BD disc.  The data is fixed – your products aren’t going to be changed very frequently – but the prices might.  You can record the basic product information onto the BD-ROM layer.  Meanwhile, you’re adding products to your catalog. Your prices continue to change.  Your sales people want to create sales presentations custom made for each individual customer.  You might even include a template for placing an order electronically.   All the custom stuff is recorded onto the RE layer.

Or, perhaps you’re a movie studio that wants to create a set of custom discs.  The basic movie – a 3D blockbuster about a dog who barks in Chinese and flies an atomic Artichoke.  ’Special Editions’ can be created, using the RE layer, that may include an interview with the director and cast, and the dog, speaking through an interpreter.  A second special edition may include test footage, screen tests of other vegetables, background information, and perhaps even a 2-D prequel to this film.  Another version may be the one created for Academy consideration, and sent out for Oscar consideration.  While these special discs contain the same film on the BD-ROM layer, each special disc can be custom made by recording it onto the RE layer.

While it’s not yet known how the IH-BD media will be priced, it seems clear that both the IH-BD and the BDXL media described in Part Four will require new drives to use them.   (Experts are predicting this)  I’m not entirely sure that some drives may be firmware upgradable to support the IH-BD media since this is still only two layers, and the current drives should be able to handle both BD-R and BD-RE.

The new formats are initially targeted to commercial customers who can make the best use of the larger capacity media and the hybrid format (and who can afford the newer drives and more expensive media).  As with most other technologies, these formats will probably trickle down to the consumer, once the commercial users have paid enough of the development costs (through purchase of drives and media) to make the trickle down to the business and consumer markets somewhat affordable.

With 3-D movies becoming available, the need for higher disc capacities will become more significant.  A 100GB or 128GB disc may be needed to distribute Toy Story 1-8 some day in the future.  In the next few years, it’s likely that your obsolete drives and game systems will be replaced with devices that can handle the new (and the current) media formats.  It’s also likely that, even though we’re seeing 2 TB hard drives at low prices, and even larger drives on the horizon, the use of Blu-ray media for saving, archiving, and distributing data will become increasingly prominent.

In this series – we’ve looked at most of the formats used by Blu-ray and taken a peek into the future.  Please feel free to comment, ask questions, and help to make this Blog a vibrant, active source of information.

Next, we looked at the Blu-ray Disc recorders (BD-R) drives.  These drives could read and write data onto single layer (25 GB capacity) and double layer (50 GB capacity) media.  An important aspect to the capability of recording data onto Blu-ray media was that you can store large amounts of data (and, of course, not just data, but audio, video, and other content) onto a single disc.  Of course, a BD-R drive could also read and write to DVD and CD media, making a BD-R drive a useful replacement for the older DVD-R (DVD-R and DVD+R) drives — and immensely important if you want to get the most amount of data onto the fewest number of discs.

Part Three took the story a bit further, introducing the Erasable or Re-Writable capabilities (BD-RW, BD-RE).  Erasability (or re-writability) provided the option for reusing a disk many times.  We suggested a few applications where the extra cost of erasable media (when compared to the write-once, BD-R, media) made sense.  BD-RE is available in single layer (25GB) or in double layer (50GB) versions and, as would be expected, the double layer media costs more than the single layer.   However, if you need the capability of storing, and re-writing 50 GB on a disc, the extra cost would be well worth paying.   (Imagine, for example, that you’re editing a large video–and you make frequent changes to the video.  You use one disc for each change, and distribute multiple copies of each disc for review and comment.  Every few hours, you generate another disc with some new changes.  The oldest of the discs is of little value – so it’s returned, erased, and new data is written onto the now empty disc.  In such a scenario, where reuse of a disc makes sense, having the ability to erase and re-record onto media is very attractive).

Now, in Part Four of this series, we’ll look at a new format that promises 128 GB of storage (100 GB rewritable) on one disc.  The format, called BDXL, was proposed by the Blu-ray Disc Association.  It takes the idea of Blu-ray recordable to whole new levels.

You’ll recall that Blu-ray media is now available in single or double layer.   Each layer is capable of storing up to 25 GB of data.  This proposed standard uses as many as four layers for the rewritable media.  Thus, as 25GB for layer, as much as 100 GB of data can be stored, erased, and stored again on a BDXL disc.

Record-only media is being stretched even further, under BDXL.  For compatibility with the rewritable, a four layer version of BD-R is being offered, with the BDXL  recordable disc capable of storing up to 100 GB of data.  The proposed specification pushes this to a total of 128 GB of storage.

These capabilities will require new hardware.  The current drives feature a laser that is capable of writing to and reading from two media layers on the disc.  The drives that support BDXL must be able to write to four (and maybe five in the case of the 128GB disc) distinct layers.  This may mean that more laser power is required to get through the first layers; it may mean that a new laser is required that can reliably produce a beam of light at a wavelength that is precise enough to read or write each distinct layer.

As with all optical disc technologies in the past – this one won’t be much different in its production and pricing curve — limited numbers of prototypes will be available first – at extremely high prices.  Production units will follow, and with the high capacities being offered, these may initially be bought and targeted to industrial users (movie studios, medical imaging, other large producers and keepers of data), and later, as production increases, will eventually make their way down to the consumer.  As time goes by–if the technology exists to actually be able to produce these drives and media in quantity — drives supporting BDXL will eventually drop in price as production increases.

Another disc format, aimed more at the consumers than at the industrial user, is the IH-BD (Intra-Hybrid Blu-ray Disc) that was also proposed early this march.  But more about the IB-HD in Part Five….coming soon.

In Part Two of this series, I wrote about recordable Blu-ray – the rather remarkable technologies that let you store as much as 50 GIGABYTES of data onto a single disc. I discussed how single layer Blu-ray discs (BD-R) can store as much as 25 GB of data, while their dual layer (BD-RDL) siblings can store up to twice as much data. It’s not clear whether all recorders (or even Blu-ray readers) can read the second layer of a dual layer disc; or whether a recorder that can write to BD-R media can also write to BD-RDL.

There’s another twist to the Blu-ray story – Blu-ray rewritable (RE – Recordable/Erasable). Rewritable media has been around for more than a decade – with CD-RW, DVD-RW, and now Blu-ray RE. RW technologies, in the past, don’t seem to have been particularly successful – except with those who actually needed rewritability.

Read-write, in the past, had difficulties finding market acceptance – or a compelling market need. There are many reasons for this. The price difference from the standard recordable and the RW discs was typically not great – even when this media was just beginning to become available, the price for RW was often less than twice that for the standard recordable media. In order to use RW media, it had to be prepared for writing (formatted), a process that added an extra step to recording a disc, and that took time to accomplish. In order to write over a piece of RW media, the disc had to be erased completely before rewriting. In the days when the difference in cost between a RW disc and a write once disc was often less than a dollar or two, the financial incentive for reusing an RW disc was minimal – and certainly hardly worth the time spent to prepare or erase and rewrite the media. Further, keeping a stack of interim recorded discs that are made during the course of development of a project probably made more sense, if one ever had to backtrack from a final disc to the interim steps saved while a project was being developed.

Today, with Blu-ray RE, the situation may have finally changed somewhat. In these days when BD-R media may cost $2, $3, $4 or more for 25 gigabytes of storage capacity, the time taken to prepare a disc or erase and prepare a disc for rewriting make the process seem more reasonable. Add to that the fact that a good deal of data can be stored on a BD-RW disc, and it seems that there may finally be compelling reasons for BD-RW.

I can imagine one scenario where BD-RE media would immediately make sense – incremental backups. Consider that your business does full backups weekly, and incremental, daily backups. The incremental backup is a backup that records only the changes made to your data during the period after the last backup. Even very large companies may have problems doing enough changes to its data that it needs 25 GB of storage for a day’s incremental. In theory, you may not need to save daily backups after you’ve completed a new, full backup. If you do this once a week, the incremental backups for the previous week should be unnecessary.

For security, you will probably save weekly backups for many weeks (if not longer), in case you have to roll back your systems or data to an earlier time. At some time, however, you may want to reuse the RW media (because the value of the data on the disc is now minimal) – being able to erase and reuse the media may actually make sense.

Rewritable media is now primarily being sold as BD-RE. BD-RE is available in 25GB and 50GB capacities. The 50 GB media is priced more than double the price for the 25GB BD-RE. For applications where a large database or other application would be best stored on a disc larger than 25GB, the 50 GB BD-Res may make sense. For example, if you’re creating a large video that uses more than 25 GB, a 50 GB RE would make sense. Or, if you were distributing data or program updates that are larger than 25GB, it probably makes sense to put it all onto one disc than to split it into two. If you are using the media to distribute interim materials to other users or remote offices – and where the disc should be erased once the data is transferred to another computer, a larger RE disc would make sense. If yours is an environment where you do NOT want data stored on media once it’s been transferred, erasable media makes a great deal of sense.

There’s another ‘little’ wrinkle to the BD-R picture – the mini-disc. Although small, a mini-disc can hold up to 7.5 GB of data. As with mini-CD and mini-DVD, the mini-BD-R discs represent a niche waiting to be filled.

In the next installment, I’ll be looking at a proposed standard that will dwarf today’s capacities

In Part One of this series , I looked at some of the basic ‘Blu-ray’ drives that can be added to a computer or used as external drives. These included the basic players – whose sole function is to play Blu-ray discs (and, possibly, to read data recorded onto a Blu-ray disc), and the so-called ‘Combo’ drives that, in addition to playing Blu-ray discs can also read and write to DVD and CD drives.

Being able to watch a Blu-ray movie on your high resolution desktop or notebook computer is nice to have. In most cases, you’re sitting closer to the screen than you would be if you were playing the same video on a high-def television, and the fine items on the screen look even better. (You may lose the surround sound that a good home theater system can deliver if you use your computer, although it’s also possible to take advantage of the surround sound processing on many computers and feed the sound to multiple speakers arranged for surround sound.)

It’s a good thing, if your computer is short of slots, or you’ve run out of USB ports on your notebook computer, to be able to replace your diehard DVD drive with a Blu-ray combo drive, but these drives don’t take full advantage of what Blu-ray truly has to offer – recordability.

Recordable Blu-Ray – BD-R

Just as DVD initially became available as a medium for distributing video (and, before that, CD was used to distribute high quality audio), Blu-ray also came out primarily as a video distribution medium. The developers of the standard realized that the uses of Blu-ray would far exceed the initial use – and that Blu-ray would have the potential of becoming a medium for storing and distributing data.

The same technologies that made it possible to deliver high-definition movies, with multiple languages, and multiple audio channels, all on a single plastic disc also made it possible to record huge (by today’s optical disc standards) amounts of data onto a single Blu-ray disc. That ‘huge’ amount today is 25GB for a single layer recordable disc, and 50 GB on a double layer disc.

Perhaps the most popular version – probably because of a somewhat lower price – is the single layer 25 GB disc. Versions are available at different recording speeds – ranging from 1X up to 6X at the time of this writing. If history is any teacher, 8X and higher media should be available soon.

Blu-ray recorders are available, and can read and write the 25GB discs. Before buying a drive, it may be worthwhile to confirm the maximum read and write speeds of the drives you are considering.  Decks having the ability to write to basic BD-R or BD-ROM discs are often called BD-R, BD-Recorders, BD-Writers, or similar names that indicate that they can read and write to BD-R media.  (There are a few other types of media, which will be covered in the next installment of this series).

The 50 GB, dual layer version, obviously holds about twice as much data as a 25 GB disc. Again, if you plan to use a Blu-ray recorder to read and write dual layer 50 GB discs, you should make sure that your drive supports dual layer.  It seems that most (if not all) BD-R drives also support the dual layer media.  However, it is prudent, before buying a drive, to confirm that your drive has these capabilities.

Next Installment — moving away from Alphabet Soup to BD-E, BD-RW and some new drive technologies

]]> http://blu-raydisc.org/?feed=rss2&p=23 0 http://blu-raydisc.org/?p=7 http://blu-raydisc.org/?p=7#comments Wed, 31 Mar 2010 17:42:04 +0000 admin http://blu-raydisc.org/?p=7 Blu-ray discs are an international phenomenon. 

One of the goals of Blu-raydisc.org is to keep you informed of current and future technologies, and industry events.  The upcoming Blu-ray Disc Academy in Frankfurt Germany will provide an advanced view of the Blu-ray Disc technologies you may be seeing in 2011 and beyond. 

The Blu-ray Disc Academy, which will be held on May 19, 2010 in Frankfurt Germany wil preview advanced Blu-ray Disc applications and Blu-ray Disc Live.  It will also feature demonstrations of 3D Blu-ray.   Presentations will be made by Imagion, Sonic, msm-Studios, enteractive, BluFocus, Sony, DVDpartners, and others.  The keynote presentation will be made by Todd Collart, Senior Vice President of New Media at Deluxe Digital Studios.

For details and registration, see www.blurayacademy.com.

Blu-Ray Disc Academy - May 19 2010 - Frankfurt Germany

The basic drive is one that is similar to the one used in home entertainment sysems — it does ONE thing, and should do it well.  That one thing, of course, is ‘playing’, or ‘reading’ the discs put into the drive.  These discs don’t necessarily have to be Blu-ray videos or games – the drives should be able to also read DVDs and CDs.  It should be able to read discs that you get commercially, like a game or movie, and also those that have been created with a DVD or CD or Blu-ray recorder.   This type of drive, with no settings for anything other than reading a disc, is the basic type of Blu-ray drive you can buy.  A drive of this type often goes by the name BD-ROM.  No recording media (BD-R or other) is supported by a BD-ROM drive.

A Combo drive adds functionality (and cost) and goes beyond the basic Blu-ray drive.   In addition to handling the reading tasks, a Combo drive is also capable of recording onto recordable DVD and CD discs.  This kind of drive can be thought of as a basic upgrade for a computer that currently has a DVD-writer (a standard component for most computers made in the last few years).  The main difference is that it can read Blu-ray discs.  So, as an upgrade, you pull out your old DVD drive, replace it with a Blu-ray Combo Drive, and what you’ve added to your computer is the ability to play Blu-ray.

In Part Two, I’ll take a look at the more interesting computer Blu-ray drives — the recordables.

Our goal is to provide useful, accurate and timely information about everything Blu-ray.  This not only includes the latest Blu-ray players, or the hottest new Blu-ray titles, but also to explore the emerging use of Blu-ray recordable discs for media storage and distribution.  Did you know, for example, that you can record up to 25 GB (that’s gigabytes) of data on a single Blu-ray disc?   This is more than five times the capacity of the standard recordable DVD.

Did you know that there is already equipment available for making multiple duplicates of these monstrous data discs.  We’ll be looking at the uses of Blu-ray for data, in addition to the beauties of Blu-ray for watching photographic quality, high definition movies with multi-channel sound.

This blog is designed to be dynamic — we want to see your comments. We value your input – positive or negative.

We would like to know what you want to see in this blog, and will do our best to deliver.

For now, let it be known that we want to be the FIRST place you go for information about everything Blu-ray.  If this means looking more closely at HDTV technologies, or perhaps even evaluating HDTV sets, we’re ready.  If this means exploring the technologies behind the new 3-D HDTV sets, and even reviewing a few, we’d certainly like to give you all you need to know — especially from a Blu-ray disc slant.

So–let us know what you’ll be wanting to read.   Post a comment or two.  We’re checking this blog frequently, and we look forward to reading what you think.