How Blu-ray Discs Work
by Stephanie Watson
Print
Cite
Feedback
51
Inside this Article
1. Introduction to How Blu-ray Discs Work
2. Building a Blu-ray Disc
3. How Blu-ray Reads Data
4. Blu-ray Competitors
5. Lots More Information
6. See all HDTV articles
Episode 41: High-definition DVD Primer
More Tech Videos »
Building a Blu-ray Disc
The Name
The Blu-ray name is a combination of "blue,"
for the color of the laser that is used, and
"ray," for optical ray. The "e" in "blue" was
purposefully left off, according to the
manufacturers, because an everyday word
cannot be trademarked.
Blu-ray discs 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. With Blu-ray, you can:
record high-definition television (HDTV) without any quality loss
instantly skip to any spot on the disc
record one program while watching another on the disc
create playlists
edit or reorder programs recorded on the disc
automatically search for an empty space on the disc to avoid recording over a program
access the Web to download subtitles and other extra features
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 pits (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 nanometers). The smaller beam focuses more precisely, enabling it to read information
recorded in pits that are only 0.15 microns (µm) (1 micron = 10-6 meters) long -- this is more than twice
as small as the pits on a DVD. Plus, Blu-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 25 GB of information -- about five times the amount of information that can be
stored on a DVD.
Source: Blu-ray Disc Association
Each Blu-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 0.6-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. Also, 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.
Learn how Blu-ray overcomes these obstacles in the next section.
