The use of Blue laser diodes extended to Blu-ray disc
Blu-ray disc which hit the commercial market in 2006 is hailed as the future generation optical disc, however, the history of blu-ray disc technology can be traced in late nineteen nineties when the inventor Shuji Nakamura demonstrated the practical uses of blue laser diodes. In the same period, the onset of HDTVs like plasma TVs and LCD Televisions in consumer market also began to impact the future trend of home entertainment market.
Sony released the prototype blu-ray disc player
It was Sony that laid the foundation of future blu-ray disc format by employing blue laser diodes in its projects – Ultra Density Optical disc (UDO) and DVR Blue discs. The latter had the concept that was later improved in blu-ray discs.
In late 2000, Sony demonstrated the first DVR Blue discs at CEATEC exhibition. The earlier discs came with marked defects such as proneness to scratches and damage, as layer that contained data was much closer to the disc surface. These discs often needed plastic cartridges for storage.
The first Blu-ray device
Two years later, Blu-ray device was officially approved followed by the formation of Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) with nine members.
In April, 2003, Sony rolled out the first Blu-ray disc player (BD-RE with recording capabilities) and the product was available only in Japan. As Digital Rights Management (DRM) was still not formed by the time, so no blu-ray disc movies were not available by the time.
Blu-ray disc format finalised
The next three years saw the blu-ray disc format making its way towards becoming an acceptable standard for home videos. By 2004, the members of BDA declared the technical specifications of Blu-ray disc format. Next year, the new polymer coating technology developed by TDK gave scratch proof feature to blu-ray disc.
In June 2006, the first BD-ROM player and the first Blu-ray movies hit the commercial market. The earlier blu-ray discs were single layered and used DVD video format (MPEG-2). However, by September, 2006, dual layer blu-ray discs came with 50GB storage capacity and used newer codes like AVC compression methods and VC-1.
In July, 2006, Sony rolled out BWU-100A, a rewritable blu-ray disc for PC storage. This disc was available in two formats – BD-R and BD-RE.
Competition from HD-DVD
The slow growth in Blu-ray discs continued in 2006 due to the high cost, the availability of fewer titles and competition from HD-DVD. Soon, Sony launched its Playstation 3 that came with blu-ray disc player and recorder. This game console became so popular with consumers and made many of them to adopt to blu-ray disc video play back. Within twelve months, the sales figure in Blu-ray discs jumped skyward and indicated double the sales of HD-DVDS.
The emergence of Blu-ray as future generation video format
While HD-DVD was losing consumer support, many Hollywood studios started Blu-ray disc adoption and released movies in blu-ray format. In early 2008, Warner Brothers announced that it would stop using HD-DVD format and use Blu-ray format only for the newer releases from May 2008. Likewise, another supporter of HD-DVD, Paramount Pictures also announced that it would use blu-ray format for its forthcoming releases.
Many HD-DVD retailers like Wal Mart, Woolworths and Netflix also announced that they would not sell HD-DVDs in future.
In February, 2008, Toshiba, the major HD-DVD manufacturer announced that it would stop the production of HD-DVD discs and players thus ending the long battle between HD-DVD and Blu-ray disc formats.
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