Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why use Blu-ray?
•Blu-ray discs have higher capacity than DVDs and are ideal for High definition Video
•Data Storage and Playstation 3 games

2. What is the capacity of a Blu-ray disc?
Blu-ray discs come in two sizes 25 GB (single layer) and 50 GB (dual layer).

3. What formats do Blu-ray discs come in?
Blu-ray discs come in the following formats BD-R (Recordable, single and dual layer.

BD-RE (Rewritable) single and dual layer, BD-ROM discs, or BD-MV commercially pressed movie releases.

4. Why is it named Blu-ray?
Because of the laser wavelength. Standard CD and DVD recorders/players use a red laser, with a lower frequency. A blue-violet laser, with a higher frequency, is able to focus a much smaller beam on the media, allowing the Blu-ray disc to contain a higher amount of data in the same physical space as a standard DVD disc.

5. How much video can you fit on a Blu-ray disc?
Over 9 hours of high-definition (HD) video on a 50GB disc.
About 23 hours of standard-definition (SD) video on a 50GB disc

6. Can I play a Blu-ray Disc in my DVD player?
No. The standard DVD player uses the red laser and cannot read the higher density data of the Blu-ray disc format. The DVD player also does not have the higher technology circuitry to decode the High Definition content.

7. Can I play a DVD or CD in my Blu-ray player?
Yes, several companies (including Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Pioneer, Sharp and LG) make products that can read/write CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs using a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical head, so you don't have to worry about your existing DVD releases becoming obsolete.

In fact, most of the Blu-ray players coming out will support upscaling of DVDs to 1080p/1080i, so your existing DVD releases will look even better than before.

While it's up to each manufacturer to decide if they want to make their products backwards compatible with DVD, the format is far too popular to not be supported. The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) expects every Blu-ray Disc device to be backward compatible with DVDs.

8. What Video Codecs will Blu-Ray Support?
•MPEG-2 - enhanced for HD, also used for playback of DVDs and HDTV recordings.
•MPEG-4 AVC - part of the MPEG-4 standard also known as H.264 (High Profile and Main Profile).
•SMPTE VC-1 - standard based on Microsoft's Windows Media Video (WMV) technology.

Please note that this simply means that all Blu-ray players and recorders support playback of these video codecs, it will still be up to the studios and producers to decide which video codec(s) they use for their releases.

9. Which audio codecs does Blu-ray support?
•Linear PCM (LPCM) - up to 8 channels of uncompressed audio. (mandatory)
•Dolby Digital (DD) - format used for DVDs, 5.1-channel surround sound. (mandatory)
•Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) - extension of Dolby Digital, 7.1-channel surround sound. (optional)
•Dolby TrueHD - lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of audio. (optional)
•DTS Digital Surround - format used for DVDs, 5.1-channel surround sound. (mandatory)
•DTS-HD High Resolution Audio - extension of DTS, 7.1-channel surround sound. (optional)
•DTS-HD Master Audio - lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of audio. (optional)