BLU-RAY DISC

BLU-RAY DISC

CONTENTS
1. ABSTRACT 2. INTODUCTION 3. BLU-RAY Vs DVD CAPABILITY 4. WORKING OF BLU-RAY 5. READING OF DATA 6. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION 7. BLU-RAY Vs OTHER DISC FORMATS 8. VARIANTS 9. ADVANTAGES 10. APPLICATIONS 11. ON GOING DEVELOPMENTS 12. CONCLUSION 13. REFERNCES

ABSTRACT

Blu-ray Disc (also known as Blu-ray or BD) is an optical disc storage medium. Its main uses are high-definition video and data storage. The disc has the same physical dimensions as standard DVDs and CDs. The name Blu-ray Disc is derived from the blue laser (violet-colored) used to read and write this type of disc. Because of the wavelength (405 nanometers), substantially more data can be stored on a Blu-ray Disc than on the DVD format, which uses a red (650 nm) laser. A twolayer Blu-ray Disc can store 50 gigabytes, almost six times the capacity of a two-layer DVD, or ten and a half times that of a single-layer DVD. As compared to the HDVD format, its main competitor, Blu-ray has more information capacity per layer, 25 instead of 15 gigabytes. Blu-ray dics 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. There are plans for BD-ROM (read only), BD (recordable) and BD-RE (rewritable) drives for PCS and with the support of the manufacturers, its very likely that the technology will be adopted as the next-generation optical disc format for PC data storage and replace technologies such as DVD+-R, DVD+-RW, and DVD+-RAM. Blu-ray Disc (BD) is the next generation optical disc format, currently being standardized by a large consortium of leading CE, PC, authoring companies and major movie studios. The BD application format addresses the limitations of DVD-Video by providing a complete user experience. The high storage capacity guarantees the best quality HD video available to the consumer. BD standardizes how content publishers can include executable applications on the disc to realize fully enhanced interactivity.

By using a programming platform like Java, the standard need not define the allowable set of features, instead it defines the playback platform and disc publishers are free to implement any features they desire. Furthermore, BD supports seamless integration of Internet content with disc content, allowing synchronized presentation of updated content from the Internet with disc content. With this combination of features, highest quality HD video, enhanced interactivity and Internet connectivity, BD offers consumers a compelling experience.

INTRODUCTION

Blu-ray is a name for a optical disc standard which uses blue-violet laser instead of red laser used in CDs and in DVDs. This allows manufacturers to store more data using the same amount of disc surface.

In fact, Blu-ray got its name from the technology, basically the "Blu" is from blue-violet diode and the "ray" is from optical ray. The "e" was intentionally dropped so that the full term "Blu-ray" could be registered as a new trademark. 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. Videos will be stored on either MPEG-2 (enhanced for new HD), MPEG-4/AVC (High Profile standard) or on the best of all three, VC-1 (HD standard based on Microsoft's Windows Media Video (WMV) technology.)

One Blu-Ray disc will hold approximately. 25GB of data (it is compared to 4.36GB on regular DVD) on one side/layer of the disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc. BD support many types of audio codecs as well with up to 8 channels of uncompressed audio. The codecs supported are: Linear PCM (LPCM), Dolby Digital (DD), Dolby Digital Plus (DD+), Dolby TrueHD, DTS Digital Surround, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTSHD Master Audio.

BLU-RAY VS DVD CAPABILITY

WORKING OF BLU-RAY
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 pita (and therefore the bumps), the more precise the reading laser must be. 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 nano meters).

The smaller beam focuses more precisely, enabling it to read information recorded in pits that are not only 0.15 microns long this is more than twice as small as the pits on a DVD. Plus, Blue-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 25GB of information about five times the amount of information that can be stores on a DVD.

Each BIu-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 O.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 , 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.

READING OF DATA
The Blu-ray disc overcomes DVD-reading issues by placing the data on top of a 1.1-mmthick 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. 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. 2. 3. The two discs are molded. The recording layer is added to one of the discs. The two discs are glued together.

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.

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.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION
Type Physical size Single Dual layer layer capacity capacity 25 GB (23.28 GiB) 7.8 GB (7.26 GiB) 50 GB (46.56 GiB) 15.6 GB (14.53 GiB) High-definition video may be stored on Bluray ROM discs with up to 1920x1080 pixel resolution at up to 60 frames per second interlaced or 24 frames per second progressive

12 cm, Standard single disc size sided 8 cm, Mini disc single size sided

Resolution

Frame Aspect rate ratio 59.94-i, 16:9 50-i

Codec

1920x1080

24-p, 1920x1080 23.976- 16:9 p MPEG-4 AVC / SMPTE VC-1 only MPEG-4 AVC / SMPTE VC-1 only

1440x1080

59.94-i, 16:9 50-i

24-p, 1440x1080 23.976- 16:9 p

1280x720

59.94-p, 16:9 50-p

24-p, 1280x720 23.976- 16:9 p 720x480 59.94-i 4:3/16:9

Laser and optics Blu-ray Disc uses a "blue" (technically violet) laser operating at a wavelength of 405 nm to read and write data. Conventional DVDs and CDs use red and near infrared lasers at 650 nm and 780 nm respectively. The blue-violet laser's shorter wavelength makes it possible to store more information on a 12 cm CD/DVD sized disc. The minimum "spot size" on which a laser can be focused is limited by diffraction, and depends on the wavelength of the light and the numerical aperture of the lens used to focus it. By decreasing the wavelength, increasing the numerical aperture from 0.60 to 0.85 and making the cover layer thinner to avoid unwanted optical effects, the laser beam can be focused to a smaller spot. This allows more information to be stored in the same area. For Blu-ray Disc, the spot size is 580 nm. In addition to the optical improvements, Blu-ray Discs feature improvements in data encoding that further increase the capacity. Hard-coating technology Because the Blu-ray Disc data layer is closer to the surface of the disc, compared to the DVD standard, it was at first more vulnerable to scratches. The first discs were housed in cartridges for protection. TDK was the first company to develop a working scratch protection coating for Blu-ray Discs. It was named Durabis. In addition, both Sony and Panasonic's replication methods include proprietary hard-coat technologies. Sony's rewritable media are spin-coated with a scratch-resistant and antistatic coating. Verbatim's recordable and rewritable Blu-ray Disc discs use their own proprietary hard-coat technology called Scratch Guard.

Recording Speed Write time for Blu-ray Disc (minutes) Single Layer 90 45 23 15 12 8 Dual Layer 180 90 45 30 23 15

Data rate Drive speed Mbit/s MB/s

1 2 4 6 8* 12**

36 72 144 216 288 432

4.5 9 18 27 36 54

BLU - RAY VS OTHER DISC FORMATS

Will Blu-ray replace previous DVDs? Its manufactures hope so. In the meantime JVC has developed a Blu-ray /DVD combo disc with an approximate 33.5GB 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 competeting for a share of DVD market. HD-DVD

The other big player is HD_DVD, also called AOD(Advanced Optical Disc), which DVD and can therefore be manufactured with the same equipment, saving on costs. The disadvantage is that it cant match the storage capacity of Blu-ray. A rewritable, single layer HD_DVD can hold 20 GB of data; a double layer disc can hold 30 GB(thats compared to 27 GB and 50 GB for Blu-ray). The read-only versions hold slightly less data. Also, HD_DVD doesnt offer the interactive capabilities of Blu-ray , although it will probably be less expensive than its competitor. OTHER COMPETETORS Blu-ray and HD-DVD are the two major competitors in the market, there are other contenders, as well. Warner Bros. Pictures has developed its own system, called HD-DVD9. 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 Forwarded Versatile Disc(FVD), an upgraded version of todays DVDs that allows for more data storage capacity (5.4 GB on a single sided disc and 9.8 GB on a doublesided disc). And China has introduced the Enhanced Video Disc (EVD), another highdefinition video disc There are also professional versions of the Blu 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). Blu-ray recorders are already available in Japan, where more consumers have access to HDTV than in the United States. Outside of Japan, once more TV sets come equipped with a high-definition tuner and more films and television shows are produced in highdefinition ( which is expected to happen by late 2005 or 2006), BIu-ray movies and TV shows on disc should become widely available. But the format is already available for home recording, professional recording and data storage. REPLACEMENT OF PREVIOUS DVD

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

Blu-ray recorders are already available in Japan, where more consumers have access to HDTV than in the United States. Outside of Japan, once more TV sets come equipped with a high-definition tuner and more films and television shows are produced in highdefinition ( which is expected to happen by late 2005 or 2006), BIu-ray movies and TV shows on disc should become widely available. But the format is already available for home recording, professional recording and data storage. Another important factor is cost. Just as with most new technologies, Blu-ray equipment will be pricey at first. In 2003, Sony released its first BIu-ray recorder in Japan with a price tag of around $3,000. The price is expected to drop as the format gains popularity. Blu-ray discs may also be initially more expensive than today's DVDs, but once demand grows and they can be mass-produced, manufacturers say the price will drop to within 10 percent of the price of current DVDs.

Even when the new video standard begins to replace current technologies, consumers won't have to throw away their DVDs, but they will need to invest in a new player. The industry is planning to market backward-compatible drives with both blue and red lasers, which will be able to play traditional DVDs and CDs as well as Blu-ray discs.

VARIANTS
MINI BLU-RAY DISC The '''Mini Blu-ray Disc''' (also, Mini-BD and Mini Blu-ray) is a compact 8cm (~3in) diameter variant of the Blu-ray Disc that can store approximately 7.5 GB of data. It is similar in concept to the MiniDVD. Recordable (BD-R) and rewritable (BD-RE) versions of Mini Blu-ray Disc have been developed specifically for compact camcorders and other compact recording devices.

BD9/BD5 BLU-RAY DISC BD9 and BD5 are lower capacity variants of the Blu-ray Disc that contain Blu-ray compatible video and audio streams contained on a conventional DVD (650 nm wavelength / red laser) optical disc. Such discs offer the use of the same advanced compression technologies available to Blu-ray discs (including H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, VC-1 and MPEG-2) while using lower cost legacy media. BD9 uses a standard 8152MB DVD9 dual-layer disc while BD5 uses a standard 4482MB DVD5 single-layer disc. BD9/BD5 discs can be authored using home computers for private showing using standard DVDR recorders. AACS digital rights management is optional. The BD9/BD5 format was originally proposed by Warner Home Video, as a cost-effective alternative to regular Blu-ray

Discs. It was adopted as part of the BD-ROM basic format, file system, and AV specifications. BD9/BD5 is similar to 3 DVD for HD DVD. AVCREC AVCREC is an official lower capacity variant of the Blu-ray Disc used for storing Blu-ray Disc compatible content on conventional DVD discs. It is being promoted for use in camcorders, distribution of short HD broadcast content and other cost-sensitive distribution needs. It is similar to HD REC for HD DVD.

Note that AVCREC is not the same as AVCHD content stored on DVD. The latter is a media independent format and is used presently in tapeless camcorders that record onto DVD and Blu-ray Discs, as well as onto SecureDigital and MemoryStick memory cards. Playing back AVCHD content on a Blu-ray player may require modification of AVCHD directory structure, but does not require re-encoding of video files themselves. BLU-RAY DISC RECORDABLE Blu-ray Disc recordable refers to two optical disc formats that can be recorded with an optical disc recorder. BD-R discs can be written to once, whereas BD-RE can be erased and re-recorded multiple times. The theoretical maximum speed for Blu-ray Discs is about 12x. Higher speeds of rotation (10,000+ rpm) cause too much wobble for the discs to be read properly, as with the 20 and 52 respective maximum speeds of DVDs and CDs. Since September 2007, BD-RE was also available in the smaller 8 cm Mini Blu-ray Disc diameter size.[92][98] On September 18, 2007, Pioneer and Mitsubishi co-developed BD-R LTH ("Low to High" in groove recording), which features an organic dye recording layer that can be manufactured by modifying existing CD-R and DVD-R production equipment, significantly reducing manufacturing costs.[99]

In February 2008, Taiyo Yuden, Mitsubishi and Maxell released the first BD-R LTH Discs,
[100]

and in March 2008, Sony's PlayStation 3 gained official support for BD-R LTH Discs

with the 2.20 firmware update. Unlike the previous releases of 120 mm optical discs (i.e. CDs and DVDs), Blu-ray recorders hit the market almost simultaneously with Blu-ray's debut (at least in Japan).

ADVANTAGES
Record high-Definition Television without any quality loss. Instantly skip to any spot on the disc. Record one program while watching another program on the disc. Create play list. Edit programs records on the disc. Automatically search for a empty space on the disc to avoid recording over the program. Access the web to download subtitles and other programs.
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.

APPLICATIONS
STAND ALONE RECORDERS AND GAME CONTROLLERS

The first BIu-Ray recorder was unveiled by Sony and was introduced to the Japanese market. JVC and Samsung Electronics announced Blu-ray based products at IFA in Berlin, Germany.

Sony has announced that the PlayStation 3 will be shipped with a Blu-Ray drive, but possibly just a read-only one. Sony's machine will also support BD-ROM pre-recorded media, which are expected to be available in early 2006. PC DATA STORAGE Blu-ray drives currently in production can transfer approximately 36 Mbit/s (54 Mbit/s for BD-ROM), but 2x speed prototypes with a 108 Mbit/s transfer rate are in development. Rates of 8x or more are planned for the future.

Hewlett Packard has announced plans to sell Blu-ray-equipped desktop PCs and laptops. In December 2005, HP announced that they would also be supporting the rival HD DVD technology. Philips was scheduled to debut a Blu-ray computer drive in the second half of 2005, but it was also delayed. On March 10, 2005 Apple Computer joined the Blu-ray Disc Association.

ON GOING 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 (TDK version) and standard unaltered optics ("Hitachi used a standard drive.") Hitachi stated that such a disc could be used to store 7 hours of 32 Mbit/s video (HDTV) or 3.5 hours of 64 Mbit/s video (Cinema 4K). In August 2006, TDK announced 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.

Also behind closed doors at CES 2007, Ritek revealed that they had successfully developed a High Definition optical disc process that extends the disc capacity to 10 layers. That increases the capacity of the discs to 250 GB. However, they noted that the major obstacle is that current reader and writer technology does not support the additional layers. 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.The first 'hybrid' Blu-Ray/DVD combo is announced to be released February 18. The Japanese optical disc manufacturer Infinity has announced this. 'Code Blue' will feature four hybrid discs, which feature a single Blu-ray layer (25GB) and two DVD layers (9 GB) on the same side of the disc. In January 2007, Hitachi showcased a 100 GB Blu-ray Disc, which consists of four layers containing 25 GB each.Unlike TDK and Panasonic's 100 GB discs, they claim this disc is readable on standard Blu-ray Disc drives that are currently in circulation, and it is believed that a firmware update is the only requirement to make it readable to current players and drives. In December 2008, Pioneer Corporation unveiled a 400 GB Blu-ray disc, which contains 16 data layers, 25 GB each, and will be compatible with current players after a firmware update. A planned launch is in the 2009-2010 time frame for ROM and 2010-2013 for rewritable discs. Ongoing development is under way to create a 1 TB Blu-ray disc as soon as 2013. At CES 2009 Panasonic unveiled the DMP-B15, the first portable Blu-ray Disc player and Sharp showed off the LC-BD60U and LC-BD80U series, the first LCD HDTVs with integrated Blu-ray players. As of April 2008, a joint licensing agreement for Blu-ray Disc has not yet been finalized.A joint licensing agreement would make it easier for companies to get a license for Blu-ray Disc without having to go to each individual company that owns a Blu-ray Disc patent. For this reason a joint licensing agreement was eventually made for DVD by the DVD6C Licensing Agency

CONCLUSION
Blu-ray disc has been a consistent road map to emerging disc technologies. Blue-ray can store up to 54 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. Its very likely that the technology will be adopted as the next generation optical disc format for PC data storage and replace technologies such as DVD+-R, DVD+-RW, and DVD-RAM.

REFERNCES
TEXT BOOKS: 1. Complete Guide to Digital Audio ByChris Middleton.

2. The Digital Bits Insider Guide to DVD

ByBill Hunt

3. DVD Demystified

By Jim Taylor

WEBSITES:
1. www.howstuffworks.com

2. www.blue-ray.com