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Blu-ray

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Blu-ray Disc
Reverse side of a Blu-ray Disc
Media typeHigh-density optical disc
EncodingMPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), and VC-1
Capacity25 GB (single layer), 50 GB (dual layer)
Read mechanism1x@36 Mbit/s & 2x@72 Mbit/s
Developed byBlu-ray Disc Association
UsageData storage, High-definition video and PlayStation 3 Games
Optical discs
General
Optical media types
Standards
See also
A blank rewritable Blu-ray disc (a BD-RE)

A Blu-ray Disc (also called BD) is a high-density optical disc format for the storage of digital media, including high-definition video.

Overview

The name Blu-ray Disc is derived from the blue-violet laser used to read and write this type of disc. Because of its shorter wavelength (405 nm), substantially more data can be stored on a Blu-ray Disc than on the DVD format, which uses a red (650 nm) laser. A single layer Blu-ray Disc can store 25 gigabytes (GB), over five times the size of a single layer DVD at 4.7 GB. A dual layer Blu-ray Disc can store 50 GB, almost 6 times the size of a dual layer DVD at 8.5 GB.

Blu-ray Disc is similar to PDD, another optical disc format developed by Sony (which has been available since 2004) but offering higher data transfer speeds. PDD was not intended for home video use and was aimed at business data archiving and backup.

Blu-ray Disc is currently in a format war with rival format HD DVD.

Technical specifications

  • About 9 hours of high-definition (HD) video can be stored on a 25 GB disc.
  • About 23 hours of standard-definition (SD) video can be stored on a 50 GB disc.
  • On average, a single-layer disc can hold a High Definition feature of 135 minutes using MPEG-2, with additional room for 2 hours of bonus material in standard definition quality. A dual layer disc will extend this number up to 3 hours in HD quality and 9 hours of SD bonus material.
Physical size Single layer capacity Dual layer capacity
12 cm, single sided 25 GB 50 GB
 8 cm, single sided 7.8 GB 15.6 GB

Laser and optics

The Blu-ray Disc system uses a blue-violet laser operating at a wavelength of 405 nm, similar to the one used for HD DVD, to read and write data hence the name. Conventional DVDs and CDs use red and infrared lasers at 650 nm and 780 nm respectively.

Profiles

The BD-ROM specification defines four profiles of Blu-ray Disc players. All video-based profiles are required to have a full implementation of BD-J.

1.0 is the basic profile that all current Blu-ray Disc players (as of August 2007) are based on. Players based on this profile are only required to have 64 KB of application data area storage, which is typically used for bookmarks and other preference storage.[citation needed] Most players have more than the minimum required 64 KB.[citation needed] After October 31 2007, this profile will be superseded by profile 1.1 as the new minimum profile.

1.1 (mandatory November 2007) is typically referred to as "Profile 1.1" (but is more formally known as "Final Standard Profile") adds a secondary video decoder (typically used for picture in picture), secondary audio (typically used for interactive audio and commentary) and capability of supporting a minimum of 256 MB of local storage (for storing audio/video and title updates). Compliance with this profile will be mandatory for player models introduced to the market after October 31 2007,[1] but existing products will be unaffected. As of July 24 2007, only the Denon DVD-3800BDCI and DVD-2500BTCI have been announced as supporting this feature when they become available in the fall of 2007.[2]

Some profile 1.0 players may be upgradeable via firmware update to profile 1.1 if they have the appropriate hardware, but no manufacturer has announced any such upgrade. When software authored with interactive features dependent on Profile 1.1 hardware capabilities are played on profile 1.0 players some features may not be available or may offer limited capability. Profile 1.0 players will still be able to play the main feature of the disc, however.

2.0 (BD-Live), also known as BD-Live, adds network connectivity to the list of mandatory functions and increases mandatory local storage capability to 1 GB. So far one manufacturer, Daewoo, has created a player with this profile, the Daewoo DBP-1000, and will hit the consumer market in the very near future.[3]

3 (audio only) is meant for an audio-only player and does not require video decoding or BD-J.

Hard-coating technology

Because the Blu-ray Disc standard places the data recording layer close to the surface of the disc, early discs were susceptible to contamination and scratches and had to be enclosed in plastic caddies for protection. The consortium worried that such an inconvenience would hurt Blu-ray Disc's market adoption. Blu-ray Discs now use a layer of protective material on the surface through which the data is read.

The recent introduction of a clear polymer coating has given Blu-ray Discs substantial scratch resistance. The coating is developed by TDK and is called "Durabis". It allows BDs to be cleaned safely with only a tissue. The coating is said to successfully resist "50 grit sandpaper scrubbing" according to Samsung Optical technical manager Chas Kalsi. [citation needed] It is not clear, however, whether discs will use the Durabis coating as a standard or only in premium discs.

Both Sony and Panasonic replication methods include proprietary hard-coat technologies. Sony's rewritable media are sprayed with a scratch-resistant and antistatic coating. Verbatim recordable and rewritable Blu-ray Disc discs use their own proprietary hard-coat technology called ScratchGuard.

Ongoing development

Although the Blu-ray Disc specification has been finalized, engineers continue working to advance the technology. Quad-layer (100 GB) discs have been demonstrated on a drive with modified optics. Furthermore TDK announced in August 2006 that they have created a working experimental Blu-ray Disc capable of holding 200 GB of data on a single side, using six 33 GB data layers.[4] Such discs would probably not work on today's players, as these devices are only designed and tested on discs that meet the current specification.

Also behind closed doors at CES 2007, Ritek has revealed that they had successfully developed a High Definition optical disc process that extends the disc capacity of both competing formats to 10 layers. That increases the capacity of the discs to 250 GB for Blu-ray compared to 150 GB for HD DVD using the same process. However, they noted that the major obstacle is that current reader and writer technology does not support the additional layers.[5]

JVC has developed a three layer technology that allows putting both standard-definition DVD data and HD data on a BD/DVD combo. If successfully commercialized, this would enable the consumer to purchase a disc which could be played on current DVD players, and reveal its HD version when played on a new BD player.[6] This hybrid disc does not appear to be ready for production and no titles have been announced that would utilize this disc structure.

BD-9

BD-9 is a red laser DVD with BD contents on it. This disc should be rotated at 3x speed or more to satisfy the minimum transfer rate of 30.24 Mbit/s.

Software standards

Codecs

Codecs are compression schemes that reduce data storage requirements; both lossy and lossless compression techniques have been developed and are being used. Depending on the application, either can be used to greatly increase the amount of audio or video storable on fixed bit-capacity media.

The BD-ROM specification mandates certain codec compatibilities for both hardware decoders (players) and the movie-software (content). For video, all players are required to support ISO MPEG-2, H.264/AVC, and SMPTE VC-1. MPEG-2 video allows decoder backward compatibility for DVDs. H.264, sometimes called MPEG-4 part 10, is a more recent video codec. VC-1 is a competing MPEG-4 derivative codec proposed by Microsoft (based on Microsoft's previous work in Windows Media 9). BD-ROM titles with video must store video using one of the three mandatory codecs (multiple codecs on a single title are allowed).

The initial version of Sony's Blu-ray Disc-authoring software shipped with support for only 1 video-codec: MPEG-2.[citation needed] Consequently, all launch titles were encoded in MPEG-2 video.[citation needed] A subsequent update allowed the content producers to author titles in any of the 3 supported codecs: MPEG-2, VC-1, or H.264.[citation needed] The choice of codecs affects the producer's licensing/royalty costs, as well as the title's maximum runtime (due to differences in compression efficiency).[citation needed] Discs encoded in MPEG-2 video typically limit content producers to around two hours of high-definition content on a single-layer (25 GB) BD-ROM. The more advanced video codecs (VC-1 and H.264) typically achieve a video runtime twice that of MPEG-2, with comparable quality.

For audio, BD-ROM players are required to support Dolby Digital AC-3, DTS, and linear PCM (up to 7.1 channels). Dolby Digital Plus, and lossless formats Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD are player optional. BD-ROM titles must use one of mandatory schemes for the primary soundtrack (linear PCM, Dolby Digital, or DTS). A secondary audiotrack, if present, may use any of the mandatory or optional codecs.[7] For uncompressed PCM and lossless audio in Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio formats, Blu-ray Discs support encoding in up to 24-bit/192 kHz for a maximum of six channels, or up to eight channels with at most 24-bit/96 kHz sampling.[8]

For users recording digital television programming, the recordable Blu-ray Disc standard's datarate of 54 Mbit/s is more than adequate to record high-definition broadcasts from any source (IPTV, cable/satellite, or terrestrial). For Blu-ray Disc movies the maximum transfer rate is 48 Mbit/s (1.5x) (both audio and video payloads together), of which a maximum of 40 Mbit/s can be dedicated to video data. This compares favorably to the maximum of 36.55 Mbit/s in HD DVD movies for audio and video data.[9]

Java software support

At the 2005 JavaOne trade show, it was announced that Sun Microsystems' Java cross-platform software environment would be included in all Blu-ray Disc players as a mandatory part of the standard. Java will be used to implement interactive menus on Blu-ray Discs, as opposed to the method used on DVD video discs, which uses pre-rendered MPEG segments and selectable subtitle pictures, which is considerably more primitive and less seamless. Java creator James Gosling, at the conference, suggested that the inclusion of a Java Virtual Machine as well as network connectivity in BD devices will allow updates to Blu-ray Discs via the Internet, adding content such as additional subtitle languages and promotional features that are not included on the disc at pressing time. This Java Version will be called BD-J and will be a subset of the Globally Executable MHP (GEM) standard. GEM is the world-wide version of the Multimedia Home Platform standard.

Region codes

The Blu-ray Disc movie region codes are different from the DVD region codes.[10] The following are the region codes for Blu-ray discs:[11]

Regions for Blu-ray standard[12]
Region code Area
A/1 North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.
B/2 Europe, Greenland, French territories, Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
C/3 India, Nepal, Mainland China, Pakistan, Russia, Central and South Asia.

This arrangement puts the countries of the major Blu-ray manufacturers (Japan, Korea, Malaysia) in the same region as the U.S., thus ensuring early releases of U.S. content to those markets. Europe isn't in this zone, and this factor may drive a greater acceptance of the HD DVD format there.

Digital rights management (DRM)

The Blu-ray Disc format employs several layers of DRM.[13][14]

Advanced Access Content System is a standard for content distribution and digital rights management. It is developed by AACS Licensing Administrator, LLC (AACS LA), a consortium that includes Disney, Intel, Microsoft, Matsushita (Panasonic), Warner Brothers, IBM, Toshiba and Sony.

Since appearing in devices in 2006, several successful attacks have been made on the format. The first known attack relied on the trusted client problem. In addition, decryption keys have been extracted from a weakly protected player (WinDVD).

BD+ is effectively a small virtual machine embedded in authorized players. It allows content providers to include executable programs on Blu-ray Discs. Such programs can:[15]

  • examine the host environment, to see if the player has been tampered with. Every licensed playback device manufacturer must provide the BD+ licensing authority with memory footprints that identify their devices.
  • verify that the player's keys have not been changed.
  • execute native code, possibly to patch an otherwise insecure system.
  • transform the audio and video output. Parts of the content will not be viewable without letting the BD+-program unscramble it.

If a playback device manufacturer finds that its devices have been hacked, it can potentially release BD+-code that detects and circumvents the vulnerability. These programs can then be included in all new content releases.

The specifications of the BD+ virtual machine are only available to licensed device manufacturers.

BD-ROM Mark is a small amount of cryptographical data that is stored physically differently from normal Blu-ray data. Bit-by-bit copies that do not replicate the BD-ROM Mark are impossible to decode. A specially licensed piece of hardware is required to insert the ROM-mark into the media during replication. Through licensing of the special hardware element, the BDA believes that it can eliminate the possibility of mass producing BD-ROMs without authorization.

Mandatory Managed Copy allows users to copy content a limited number of times, but requiring registration with the content provider to acquire the keys needed; this feature was originally requested by HP.[16]

AnyDVD HD allows users to watch Blu-ray Disc movies on non-HDCP compliant PC hardware. The movies can be decrypted on the fly direct from the Blu-ray Disc or can be copied to hard disk. AnyDVD HD is also capable of automatically removing any unwanted logos and trailers. They have stated that AnyDVD HD uses several different mechanisms to disable the encryption, and is not dependent on the use of a single compromised encryption key.[citation needed] They have also stated that AACS has even more flaws in its implementation than CSS,[citation needed] rendering it highly vulnerable, but they will release no details for obvious reasons.

Applications

Compatibility

While it is not compulsory for manufacturers, the Blu-ray Disc Association recommends that Blu-ray Disc drives should be capable of reading standard DVDs for backward compatibility. For instance, Samsung's first Blu-ray Disc drive can read CDs, regular DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs. All other Blu-ray Disc players released support DVD playback as well, however not all support CD playback. This includes Sony, Panasonic, Philips, LG, Pioneer and PC-based players from Alienware, Sony, and Dell. LG has also produced a player that is capable of playing both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats.

Stand-alone players

PlayStation 3 (Sony)
File:Vidabox max.jpg
VidaBox MAX Dual Blu-ray Disc+HD DVD System

The home video game console system PlayStation 3 (Sony) is shipped with a 2x Blu-ray Disc drive. The drive is read-only as is the case with most game console optical drives. According to Sony's press releases, it supports DVD (8x), CD (24x), and SACD (2x) formats in addition to BD-ROM, BD-R, and BD-RE. Full HD 1080/60p and 24p True Cinema Video Output. AVCHD Media playback with x.v.Color output.

On January 4, 2006, at the Consumer Electronics Show Philips announced their first Blu-ray Disc consumer product to the U.S. market.

On April 13 2006, Panasonic announced its first Blu-ray Disc player for the U.S. market, the DMP-BD10 would be shipping together in late 2006 along with their first commercially available plasma 1080p HDTVs.[17]

On December 4, 2006, Sony launched their first standalone Blu-ray Disc player, the BDP-S1, to the U.S. market for US$1000.

On January 8, 2007, Samsung announced their second generation Blu-ray Disc player BD-P1200. It retails for US$799.

On February 26, 2007, Sony announced their second generation Blu-ray Disc player BDP-S300 for the U.S. market. Full HD 1080/60p and 24p True Cinema Video Output. AVCHD Media playback with x.v.Color output. The player has all the features of the BDP-S1 along with CD playback in a smaller chassis and retails for US$499. [18]

On July 11, 2007, Samsung announced their third generation Blu-ray Disc players.[19] The BD-P1400 and the BD-P2400 will retail for $549 and $649 and be available in October 2007.[19] The BD-P2400 will utilize the HQV or "Hollywood Quality Video" video processing chip.[19]

Recordable stand-alone players

The first Blu-ray Disc recorder was demonstrated by Sony on March 3, 2003, and was introduced to the Japanese market in April that year. On September 1, 2003, JVC announced Blu-ray Disc-based products at IFA in Berlin, Germany.

In June 2004, Panasonic became the second manufacturer to launch a Blu-ray Disc recorder to the Japanese market. Launching in July the DMR-E700BD was one of the first few units to support writing to existing DVD formats, and to single-side dual-layer Blu-ray Discs with a maximum capacity of 50 gigabytes. The launch price of the recorder was US$2,780, with 50 GB disc costing around US$69 and the 25 GB disc costing around US$32.[20][21]

On September 13 2006, Panasonic announced a Blu-ray Disc (BD) recorder capable of playing back BDs. The Blu-ray Disc DIGA DMR-BW200 and DMR-BR100 can record high-definition imagery on BD-RE rewritable discs and dub from the built-in hard-disk drive.[22]

Portable players

Sony will release the first portable BD player in 2008. It's rumored that the screen will be an OLED as opposed to an LCD.[citation needed] [1]

Universal players (Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD)

On October 18 2006, VidaBox announced the first media center PC capable of playing back both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. The VidaBox MAX and VidaBox LUX can have both drives upgraded to play both high-definition formats up to their native 1080p resolutions at 24-bit color.[23]

On January 7, 2007, LG Electronics announced the release of the BH-100 (Super-Multi Blue Player), the first player to market that was able to play movies from both high definition formats. It is not able to utilize the interactive menus and features (HDi) of the HD DVD format.[24]

On April 13, 2007, Samsung announced their first generation Universal Combo player BD-UP5000. This is the first player announced that supports the full specs of both the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats including all interactive features of both formats.[25]

Camcorders

On July 23 2007, Hitachi, Ltd. revealed that they had developed technologies for 1920×1080 pixel Blu-ray camcorders.[26] The camcorders are scheduled for a fall 2007 release in Japan.[27]

On August 2 2007, Hitachi, Ltd. announced the world's first Blu-ray Disc Camcorder. The new camcorders will start selling in Japan on August 30, 2007, and overseas market sequentially starting from October.[28]

Personal Computer and Notebook

In 2006, Sony introduced its VAIO AR range notebook featuring Blu-ray Disc drive. This is the first notebook featuring Blu-ray Disc drive.

In December of 2006, Dell introduced its XPS M1710 laptop with a BD-ROM player and burner at a base price of US$3,599. Dell's 20 inch laptop, XPS M2010 is customisable to include Blu-ray Disc drive.[29]

On 9 May 2007, Hewlett-Packard introduced its select Pavilion Desktop range featuring LG's combo Blu-ray Disc Recordable/HD DVD-ROM drive, which can be customised online.[30]

HP's business laptop range features a Blu-ray Disc drive as the only high-definition drive available to choose from.[31]

In UK, Acer, supporter of both formats, has released notebook with Blu-ray Disc drive.

PC Drives

On May 2, 2007, Pioneer announced its BDC-2202 Blu-ray Disc computer drive. It will be able to play back Blu-ray Disc movies, as well as BD-ROM/BD-R/BD-RE at up to 5x and can read BD-ROM (DL) and BD-R/-RE (DL) at up to 2x speed. It does not have the ability to write Blu-ray Discs but does have the ability to record to DVD and CD media. The drive is now available at a retail price of US$299.[32]

Recordable PC drives

Main article: Blu-ray Disc recordable

Originally, Blu-ray Disc drives in production could only transfer approximately 4.5 Megabytes per second (MB/s) (equivalent to 36 Mbit/s) (54 Mbit/s required for BD-ROM), but 4x speed drives with a 18 MB/s (144 Mbit/s) transfer rate are now available. Rates of 8x (36 MB/s or 288 Mbit/s) or more are planned for the future. Initially, devices used Parallel ATA but newer ones more commonly use Serial ATA.

The first mass-market internal Blu-ray rewritable drive for the PC was the BWU-100A, released by Sony on July 18 2006. It records both single and dual layer BD-R, as well as BD-RE discs. This item had a suggested retail price of US$699.[33] As of 2007 several other models by companies such as LiteOn, LG, Pioneer, and Plextor have also been released, including a dual layer device and 4x BD-R writing, and devices capable of working with ordinary DVD and CD as well as Blu-ray.

Corporate support

Main article: List of corporations supporting Blu-ray

Blu-ray Disc has gained a large amount of support in the corporate world,[34] with companies such as Apple Inc., Dell, and Panasonic supporting it. Blu-ray Disc was started by Hitachi, LG, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Thomson in February 19, 2002.[35] Blu-ray Disc Founders was established in May, 2002. It shifted to Blu-ray Disc Association on May 18, 2004.

While some corporate sources claim HD DVD is "lower cost" to reproduce, a study performed by Home Media Magazine (August 5 2007) reveals this is no longer the case. Quotes from several disc manufacturers for 25,000 units of HD DVDs and Blu-rays revealed a price differential of only 5–10 cents. (Lowest price: 90 cents versus 100 cents. Highest price: $1.45 versus $1.50.)[36]

It has been reported (in PCworld, Arstechnica, on CNN, et al) that Blu-ray bans pornography and that this may have an effect on which format is successful.[37] However, this is inaccurate, as both formats have said they fully support all material, including porn, and have no control over what companies release with their license.[38]

Currently, Blu-ray Disc is exclusively supported by Sony Pictures Entertainment and MGM (both owned by Sony) as well as Disney, 20th Century Fox, and Lionsgate. It is non-exclusively supported by Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema. Several members of the Blu-ray organization's Board of Directors, such as Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, and LG, pledged support to Blu-ray Disc, and later, also supported HD DVD.

In a recent interview with GameSpot, when quizzed on the new LG HD DVD/Blu-ray Disc combo players, Sir Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony, had this to say:

It's an expensive way of showing Universal discs. The three biggest box-office winners of this year were, in order: Sony, Disney, and Fox. Those are the three Blu-ray players. When you consider that those three successful studios will be delivering last year's successful box office in home video this year, then that's an enormous advantage. The fourth is Warner, and they release in both formats, so it doesn't hurt. If you are going to be buying discs, you are going to be buying an awful lot of Blu-ray discs going forward—if you want Pirates of the Caribbean or James Bond or Da Vinci Code or Spider-Man. Universal is the only one with HD DVD. I don't feel terribly intimidated.

Beginning July 2007, Blockbuster Video, one of the largest chain of DVD and video game rental stores in the world, will be carrying only Blu-ray Discs in 1,450 more stores,[39] in addition to the original 250 that carried both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Online they will still be offering both formats.[40] Blockbuster will continue to offer both formats at its initial 250 stores that currently carry both high-definition formats.[41]

On July 25 2007, Target Corporation announced they will carry Sony Blu-ray Disc stand alone players in their stores and promote them with end cap displays including exclusive Blu-ray Disc movies from Sony and Walt Disney. While Target will not carry HD DVD stand alone players on its shelves, the chain will continue to sell both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD movies in all stores and HD DVD players online.[42]

On August 20 2007, Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures and DreamWorks Animation, announced they would no longer be supporting the Blu-ray format. Citing HD DVD's lower consumer equipment and disc replication costs (due to its simarlarities to the standard DVD format), all future Paramount/Dreamworks titles will be released exclusively on HD DVD. Together, Paramount and DreamWorks are currently the 2007 box office leaders and their first two HD DVD exclusive titles Shrek 3 and Transformers are both poised to be top sellers during the 2007 holiday season.[43][44] Movies directed by Steven Spielberg are not included in this announcement as Spielberg controls his films.[45] In an interview with PC World Alan Bell the Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Paramount Pictures stated the support for HD DVD exclusively is currently indefinite.[46] However, two Viacom executives who spoke to the New York Times disclosed that the terms of the agreement were for $150 million in incentives in exchange for the exclusivity lasting at least 18 months, or through the next two holiday seasons.[47]

Blu-ray Disc / HD DVD comparison

Main article: Comparison of high definition optical disc formats

The primary rival to Blu-ray Disc is HD DVD, championed by Toshiba, NEC Corporation and Microsoft. HD DVD has a lower disc capacity per layer (15 GB vs. 25 GB). However the vast majority of Blu-ray Disc titles released before 2007 are in the 25 GB single layer format while almost all HD DVD movies are in the 30 GB dual layer format.[48] The first 50 GB release for Blu-ray Disc was not made until October 2006. The Blu-ray Disc version of the Adam Sandler movie Click was released on October 10 2006, as the first ever dual-layer release. So far in 2007 approx 42% of the new releases for Blu-ray Disc movies were released in 25 GB Discs with the other 58% being released in 50 GB dual layer format.[49]

In terms of audio/video compression, Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD are similar on the surface: both support MPEG-2, VC-1, and H.264 for video compression, and Dolby Digital (AC-3), PCM, and DTS for audio compression. The first generation of Blu-ray Disc movies released used MPEG-2 (the standard currently used in DVDs, although encoded at a much higher video resolution and a much higher bit rate than those used on conventional DVDs), while initial HD DVDs releases used the VC-1 codec. Due to greater total disc capacity, the Blu-ray Disc producers may choose in the future to utilize a higher maximum video bit rate, as well as potentially higher average bit rates. In terms of audio, there are some differences. Blu-ray Disc allows conventional AC-3 audiotracks at 640 kbit/s, which is higher than HD DVD's maximum of 504 kbit/s. Nevertheless, Dolby Digital Plus support is mandatory for standalone HD DVD players at a maximum of 3 Mbit/s, while optional for BD players with support at a bitrate of 1.736 Mbit/s.[50] Blu-ray also supports Dolby TrueHD lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of audio, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio, a lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of audio.[51]

Both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc support the 24p (traditional movie) frame rate, but technical implementations of this mode are different between the formats. Blu-ray Disc supports 24p with its native timing, while HD DVD uses 60i timing for 24p (encoded progressively, replacing missing fields with "repeat field flags"). Decoders can ignore the “flags” to output 24p.[52] There is no impact on picture resolution and minimal impact on storage space as a result of this, as the HD DVD format often uses the same encoded video—it simply adds notational overhead.

Template:HighDefMediaComparison

The Blu-ray Disc / HD DVD "format war"

Blu-ray Disc is currently in a "format war" with rival format HD DVD, to determine which (if either) of the two formats will become the leading carrier for high-definition content to consumers.

Released titles

File:CeBIT 2006 Panasonic bluray cases huellen by HDTVTotalDOTcom.jpg
Some Blu-ray Disc movie cases

The first Blu-ray Disc titles were released on June 20 2006. They included the following titles from the following companies:

As of August 21 2007, 326[53] titles have been released on Blu-ray Disc in the United States. The earliest releases used MPEG-2 video compression. This is the compression method used on DVDs. The first releases using the newer VC-1 and AVC codecs were introduced in September 2006.[54] The first movies using dual layer discs (50 GB) were introduced in November 2006. Since January 2007, new releases on dual layer disc have represented about half of all new releases approximately 75 titles and 2.5 mm discs.[55]

Royalties

As of March 2007, patent royalties are under negotiation and have not yet been determined.

See also

Alternative disc technologies

References

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  28. ^ HITACHI UNVEILS THE WORLD'S FIRST BLU-RAY DISC CAMCORDER-Hitachi, Ltd.2007-08-02
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  30. ^ "HP Pavilion m8100y Overview - include BD drive".
  31. ^ "Some of HP Business Laptop including BD drive".
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  33. ^ "Sony BWU-100A rewritable drive". 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-04.
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  35. ^ "Large Capacity Optical Disc Video Recording Format "Blu-ray Disc" Established". SONY Press Release. February 19, 2002. Retrieved 2007-08-31.
  36. ^ "Indies wait for HD - Page 1 - lists bulk prices for blank discs".
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  43. ^ Paramount is box office leader in 2007
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  49. ^ Dual Layer Discs on BD and HD at avsforum.com
  50. ^ Dolby Digital plus True HD whitepaper at www.dolby.com
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  53. ^ "Total available United States releases".
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