Blu-Ray Disks

In 1997, a new technology emerged that brought digital sound

and video into homes all over the world. It was called DVD, and it
revolutionized the movie industry.

The industry is set for yet another revolution with the

introduction of Blu-ray Discs (BD) in 2006. With their high storage
capacity, Blu-ray discs can hold and play back large quantities of
high-definition video and audio, as well as photos, data and other
digital content.

In this article, HowStuffWorks explains how the Blu-ray disc

works and how it was developed, and we'll see how it stacks up
against some other new digital video formats on the horizon.
 A current, single-sided, standard DVD can hold 4.7 GB
(gigabytes) of information. That's about the size of an average two-
hour, standard-definition movie with a few extra features. But a high-
definition movie, which has a much clearer image (see How Digital
Television Works), takes up about five times more bandwidth and
therefore requires a disc with about five times more storage. As TV
sets and movie studios make the move to high definition, consumers
are going to need playback systems with a lot more storage
capacity.

Blu-ray is the next-generation digital video disc. It can record, store

and play back high-definition video and digital audio, as well as
computer data. The advantage to Blu-ray is the sheer amount of
information it can hold:

• A single-layer Blu-ray disc, which is roughly the same size as

a DVD, can hold up to 27 GB of data -- that's more than two
hours of high-definition video or about 13 hours of standard
video.
• A double-layer Blu-ray disc can store up to 50 GB, enough to
hold about 4.5 hours of high-definition video or more than
20 hours of standard video. And there are even plans in the
works to develop a disc with twice that amount of storage.

Building a Blu-ray Disc

The Blu-ray name is a combination of "blue," for the color of the laser that is used,
and "ray," for optical ray. The "e" in "blue" was purposefully left off, according to
the manufacturers, because an everyday word cannot be trademarked.

Blu-ray discs not only have more storage capacity than traditional
DVDs, but they also offer a new level of interactivity. Users will be
able to connect to the Internet and instantly download subtitles and
other interactive movie features. With Blu-ray, you can:

• record high-definition television (HDTV) without any quality

loss
 • instantly skip to any spot on the disc
• record one program while watching another on the disc
• create playlists
• edit or reorder programs recorded on the disc
• automatically search for an empty space on the disc to
avoid recording over a program
• access the Web to download subtitles and other extra
features

Discs store digitally encoded video and audio information in pits --

spiral grooves that run from the center of the disc to its edges. A
laser reads the other side of these pits -- the bumps -- to play the
movie or program that is stored on the DVD. The more data that is
contained on a disc, the smaller and more closely packed the pits
must be. The smaller the pits (and therefore the bumps), the more
precise the reading laser must be.

Source: Blu-ray Disc Association

Unlike current DVDs, which use a red laser to read and write data,
Blu-ray uses a blue laser (which is where the format gets its name).
A blue laser has a shorter wavelength (405 nanometers) than a red
laser (650 nanometers). The smaller beam focuses more precisely,
enabling it to read information recorded in pits that are only 0.15
microns (µm) (1 micron = 10-6 meters) long -- this is more than twice
as small as the pits on a DVD. Plus, Blu-ray has reduced the track
pitch from 0.74 microns to 0.32 microns. The smaller pits, smaller
beam and shorter track pitch together enable a single-layer Blu-ray
disc to hold more than 25 GB of information -- about five times the
amount of information that can be stored on a DVD.

Each Blu-ray disc is about the same thickness (1.2

millimeters) as a DVD. But the two types of discs store data
differently. In a DVD, the data is sandwiched between two
polycarbonate layers, each 0.6-mm thick. Having a polycarbonate
layer on top of the data can cause a problem called birefringence, in
which the substrate layer refracts the laser light into two separate
beams. If the beam is split too widely, the disc cannot be read. Also, if
the DVD surface is not exactly flat, and is therefore not exactly
perpendicular to the beam, it can lead to a problem known as disc
tilt, in which the laser beam is distorted. All of these issues lead to a
very involved manufacturing process.

How Blu-ray Reads Data?

The Blu-ray disc overcomes DVD-reading issues by placing the
data on top of a 1.1-mm-thick polycarbonate layer. Having the
data on top prevents birefringence and therefore prevents readability
problems. And, with the recording layer sitting closer to the
objective lens of the reading mechanism, the problem of disc tilt is
virtually eliminated. Because the data is closer to the surface, a hard
coating is placed on the outside of the disc to protect it from
scratches and fingerprints.

Blu-ray Disks (BD)

Optical disc technologies such as DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RW, and
DVD-RAM employ a 650nm red laser, bond 0.6mm-thick discs and
use lenses with a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.6. By employing a
short wavelength (405nm) blue violet laser, the Blu-ray Disc (BD)
successfully minimizes its beam spot size, reducing the lens' NA to
0.85 and so making it possible to focus the laser spot with much
greater precision.
 As a consequence, the Blu-ray Disc's tracking pitch is reduced
to 0.32µm, less than half that of a regular DVD, and the minimum
mark length is 0.14-micron, down from DVD's 0.4-micron. In addition,
by using a disc structure with a 0.1mm optical transmittance
protection layer, the Blu-ray Disc diminishes aberration caused by
disc tilt, allowing for disc better readout and an increased recording
density. This allows data to be packed more tightly on a Blu-ray Disc
than on a DVD. A single-layer disc can hold 25GB, which can be
used to record over 2 hours of HDTV or more than 13 hours of SDTV.
There are also dual-layer versions of the discs that can hold 50GB.
All this is achieved on media that is the same physical size as a
CD/DVD.

The track format of Recordable Blu-ray Disc is groove-

recording, i.e., recording data only on groove or in groove tracks. For
the groove recording method, lands are sandwiched between
adjacent grooves to block heat transfer between the grooves during
recording, preventing signal quality deterioration in one groove track
due to the influence of recording data in an adjacent groove tracks
with a narrow track pitch. The track pitch between grooves in
Recordable Blu-ray Disc is 0.32µm.

The Recordable Blu-ray Disc specification allows for multiple

variations in the recording capacity. According to the Specifications
Book, the 120mm single-layer type has three different discs with
capacities of 23.3, 25 and 27GB, while the dual-layer type has
capacities of 46.6, 50 and 54GB. The three different capacities of
each type have been realised by using different linear recording
densities, but all using the same track pitch. The minimum length of
marks recordable on a disc is 0.160, 0.149 and 0.138µm, in the order
of the recording capacity.

With the rapid growth of HDTV globally after 2003, the

consumer demand for recording HD programming rose quickly. Blu-
ray was designed with this application in mind and has a data transfer
rate of 36MBps and utilises the MPEG-2 transport stream
compression used by digital broadcasts. This makes it highly
compatible with global standards for digital TV, and means that HDTV
broadcasts can be recorded directly to the disc without any quality
loss or extra processing. In addition, by fully utilising an optical disc's
random access features, it's possible to playback video on a disc
while simultaneously recording HD video.

While the format itself is not compatible with previous DVD

technologies, Blu-ray products are made backwards compatible
through the use of a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical pickup, thereby
allowing playback of CDs and DVDs.

Initial indications were that DVD Forum member Warner Bros.

and other content-production companies were firmly in the HD-DVD
camp, since it would allow Hollywood studios to repurpose their
content one more time, without having first to incur high investment
costs in transitioning to brand-new replication equipment. However,
by the end of 2005 the BD format had taken the lead, with most major
movie studios having committed to releasing films in the format by the
following year.

In January 2006 Sony announced its intention to start selling

Blu-ray Disc players in the USA in the summer of that year, a few
months later than rival Toshiba's planned launch of its first HD-DVD
player. This seemed a coup for the HD-DVD camp, but slow take-up
of the technologies from a wary consumer market meant that this
proved no great advantage. It was clear by then that one of the
technologies would fail, picking the winner was tough, and few were
willing to make a costly gamble on a system and media that might
soon be defunct.

The table below compares some of the principal characteristics of the

Blu-ray Disc format with the DVD format:

Characteristic DVD BD
Capacity per layer (GB) 4.7 25
Max number of layers 2 2
Max number of sides 2 2
Substrate + cover layer (mm) 0.6 + 0.6 1.1 + 0.1
Laser wavelength (nm) 650 405
Numerical aperture 0.65 0.85
Cartridge No No
Hard coating needed No Yes
Complexity to read DVD - More complex
Maximum Data Rate (MBps) 11.08 (1x) 36.55 (1x)
Maximum Recording Single-layer 2 hours 13 hours
Time (SDTV) Dual-layer 4 hours 26 hours
Triple-layer - 39 hours

Maximum Recording Single-layer - 2 hours

Time (HDTV) Dual-layer - 4 hours
Triple-layer - 6 hours

The design of the Blu-ray discs saves on manufacturing costs.

Traditional DVDs are built by injection molding the two 0.6-mm discs
between which the recording layer is sandwiched. The process must
be done very carefully to prevent birefringence.

1. The two discs are molded.

2. The recording layer is added to one of the discs.
3. The two discs are glued together.
 Source: Blu-ray Disc Association
Blu-ray discs only do the injection-molding process on a single 1.1-
mm disc, which reduces cost. That savings balances out the cost of
adding the protective layer, so the end price is no more than the
price of a regular DVD.

Photo courtesy Blu-ray Disc Association

A BD-ROM disc researcher holds a disc up to the
light.
 Blu-ray also has a higher data transfer rate -- 36 Mbps
(megabits per second) -- than today's DVDs, which transfer at 10
Mbps. A Blu-ray disc can record 25 GB of material in just over an
hour and a half.

We'll look at some of Blu-ray's competitors in the next section.

Formats
Unlike DVDs and CDs, which started with read-only
formats and only later added recordable and re-writable
formats, Blu-ray is initially designed in several different
formats:

• BD-ROM (read-only) - for pre-recorded content

• BD-R (recordable) - for PC data storage
• BD-RW (rewritable) - for PC data storage
• BD-RE (rewritable) - for HDTV recording

Blu-ray Competitors
Will Blu-ray replace previous DVDs? Its manufacturers hope so.
In the meantime, JVC has developed a Blu-ray/DVD combo disc
with an approximate 33.5-GB capacity, allowing for the release of
video in both formats on a single disc. But Blu-ray is not alone in the
marketplace. A few other formats are competing for a share of the
DVD market.

The other big player is HD-DVD, also called AOD (Advanced

Optical Disc), which was developed by electronics giants Toshiba and
NEC. HD-DVD was actually in the works before regular DVD, but it
didn't begin real development until 2003.

The advantage to HD-DVD is that it uses the same basic format

as the traditional DVD and can therefore be manufactured with the
same equipment, saving on costs. HD-DVD matches the storage
capacity of Blu-ray. A rewritable, single-layer HD-DVD can hold 15
GB of data, a double-layer disc can hold 30 GB, and a triple-layer
disc can hold 45 GB (that's compared to 27 GB and 50 GB for Blu-
ray). The read-only versions hold slightly less data. Also, HD-
DVD offers the interactive capabilities of Blu-ray, with HDi.

Photo courtesy photo courtesy Samsung

Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player

Blu-ray and HD-DVD are the two major competitors in the

market, but there are other contenders, as well. Warner Bros.
Pictures has developed its own system, called HD-DVD-9. This
system uses a higher compression rate to put more information
(about two hours of high-definition video) on a standard DVD. Taiwan
has created the Forward Versatile Disc (FVD), an upgraded version
of today's DVDs that allows for more data storage capacity (5.4 GB
on a single-sided disc and 9.8 GB on a double-sided disc). And China
has introduced the Enhanced Video Disc (EVD), another high-
definition video disc.

There are also professional versions of the blue laser

technology. Sony has developed XDCAM and ProData (Professional
Disc for Data). The former is designed for use by broadcasters and
AV studios. The latter is primarily for commercial data storage (for
example, backing up servers).

It seems that the future holds a whole lot more than 25 to 54

GB on a single disc. According to T3: Pioneer goes beyond Blu-Ray,
Pioneer is developing an optical disc that will blow away the hard
disc in most of our PCs in terms storage capacity, holding 500 GB of
data. How so? Pioneer's lasers are ultraviolet, which have an even
shorter wavelength than the blue.