Comparison Of Blu-ray And Other Media Disk Formats

Blu-ray disk format is the new innovative step in the media disk technology’s evolution. Bluray disk is a high performance media technology that can pack massive volumes of High definition data. For a person to understand the new Bluray DVD disk technology, it is necessary that he should be aware of the needs for a new advanced format, and the basic features of the media recording technologies prior to the Bluray. Once you have evaluated the DVD (digital versatile disc) and the compact disk (CD) technologies, it will become easier for the users to realize the advanced and unparalleled features offered by the Blu-ray media format.

In 1982, the CDs were first introduced into the market and are mainly used for recording music. Laser disks were introduced before the CD disk format but it did not gain success. Compact disk format was one the first optical disk technology which gained popularity and widespread acceptance. CD has thickness of 1.2mm and has diameter of 120mm. Weight of a standard CD is approx. 16 grams. A standard CD compact disk has the capacity to hold 700MB data or audio of 80 minutes.

Compact disc comprises of 4 layers. These layers are reflective layer, polycarbonate disk layer, lacquer layer and the artwork layer. The information is written on the CD on its polycarbonate layer and the laser light is reflected back by the reflective layer. The lacquer layer of CD disk prohibits oxidation. The artwork layer comprises of a screen that has been printed on top of the compact disk. In CD media format, the information is transferred on the polycarbonate layer in the form of pits and lands. The pits & lands represent the binary data. Continuation of land or pit indicates a zero, which means it is “false”. While on the other hand transformation of land to pit or from pit to land signifies as one, meaning that it is “true”.

The CD disk format was further enhanced and the DVD (digital versatile disk) technology was introduced. DVD digital versatile disk format is the outcome of the combined efforts of two prior disk formats, the MMCD (multimedia compact disc) and the SD (super density) disk. The developers of MMCD and SD disk formats agreed upon a single DVD standard rather than becoming a part of a media disk format war. Therefore the outcome was a standard DVD media technology. DVD disc format is more advantageous than CD technology as it is capable of holding more volumes of information. DVD disk (single sided) has the ability to record six times more data amount than a compact disk can hold. Double sided DVD disks are also available whose recording capacity is twice as of single layer DVD media disks. Both double and single sided DVD media disks are commonly used for distribution of commercial movies. It allows standard definition audio/video up to 2 hours along with other extra features likes games. High performance Bluray recordable disks are more reliable storage medium for recording HD data. Recording capacities of the Blu-ray format is many times more as compares to the DVD. The high capacity Bluray technology is specifically designed to fulfill and exceed beyond the basic requirements of the current high definition HD format.