The Evolution of Blu-Ray - The way the Blu-Ray Disc Was Born
It's an intriguing story, with some major battles thrown in for good measure, a story that may be well worth reading regardless if you're not just a tech junkie.
In order to truly understand Blu-ray, you possess to go back to the first 80's when CDs or Compact Discs were introduced. CDs were a giant leap forward when you compared it to the current media at the time; primarily because the CD offered more storage, better sound quality and quickly became the universal standard for pre-recorded, recordable and rewritable media. CDs had around 650MB of storage capacity which has been revolutionary during the time for data storage and retrieval.
However, no technology stands still, especially when you think about our insatiable necessity for more compact storage and higher quality images. Hence, we had the development of the DVD inside the 90's that had a 5-10 X increase in capacity within the CD. The DVD allowed for high quality, standard definition video distribution and recording, not to mention accommodating larger data application. Another key element to this particular seamless transition, was that the DVD spec used the exact same factor as being the CD which allowed for full backwards compatibility. These important aspects would stop lost on the development within the next generation media; this being the Blu-ray Disc.
How to make a Blu-ray cover
The beginnings in the Blu-ray started in the mid '90's with the development of HDTV sets. Consumers soon realized there is no media able to recording or playing back High Definition
content. There were clearly no mediums that may store HD codecs, with the exception of JVCs Digital VHS and Sony's HDCAM; but nothing practical much like the CD and DVD media.
However, it had been known that using lasers with shorter wavelengths you would be able to create optical storage with higher density. With this knowledge, Shuji Nakamura invented practical blue laser diodes. Its commercial use was delayed with a patent lawsuit, but eventually the Blu-ray disc became available and the next thing inside the evolution of storage media began.
The Difference: The key benefits of Blu-ray Discs versus DVDs.
Although blu-ray disc are the same physical measurements of a DVD or CD, they are designed for storing and reading much more data. The actual cause of this is certainly its use of a blue laser as opposed to the red laser utilized by DVDs and CDs. The blue laser has a shorter wavelength, a reduced aperture lens and a thinner cover layer in the disc that assists you to make a smaller beam spot size capable
of storing and reading a great deal more data for the disc.
Naturally, no discussion will be complete without mentioning the really heated battle between two opposing technologies: Blu-ray vs HD-DVD. Each disc format have major backers, behind Blu-ray stands Sony, Dell, Hitachi, Hewlett-Packard, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung... and backing HD-DVD we have now Toshiba, NEC plus some major movie studios Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros and New Line Cinema.
While believe Blu-ray has won the battle and can probably end up being the dominant hd technology. (Beta anyone?) The primary argument being storage, since Blu-ray offers 25 GB for single-layer and 50 GB for dual-layer; this is certainly as compared to HD-DVD which gives 15 GB for single-layer and 30 GB for dual-layer.
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