Blu-Ray Players Continue Evolving

Aug 04
2010
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In previous blogs, we explored Blu-ray standards, and looked at Blu-ray as a storage medium.  Blu-ray discs can be used for data backup, for data distribution, and can be used for saving your own video made with a camcorder or other high definition device.  Proposed standards even define a Blu-ray disc format that can hold 128 GB.

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 Read the rest of this entry »

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Putting Blu-ray into Business

Jun 30
2010
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Tapping into some of the underappreciated strengths of Blu-ray

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 Read the rest of this entry »

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Blu-ray Disc Alphabet Soup – Part Four – Future (128 GB discs!)

Apr 28
2010
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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 »

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