The first three parts of this series explored the different types of Blu-ray drives for use in computers (and some game systems).  We looked at the basic Blu-ray disk readers (BD-ROM), that were capable of playing Blu-ray discs, and probably also capable of reading data recorded onto Blu-ray discs.  We also looked at the ‘combo’ drives that not only had the ability to read Blu-ray discs, but also could record DVDs and CDs.

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 Read the rest of this entry »