The Blu Ray disc, also known as the BD, is an optical storage medium, having similarities to the normal CD or DVD. It can store far more volume of datum as compared to traditional discs. A single-side Blu ray disc can have a capacity of 25GB, while a both-side Blu ray disc will have a capacity of 50GB. A Blue laser beam is used to read the disc, which is why the disc is so named. Traditional CD players use a green laser to read data from the disc, and therefore, it is impossible for the traditional players to play and fetch data out of a BD. Special BD players, ranging from $200 to $3000, are available in the market today and a lot of evolution has taken place with the BD players since the first BD player was launched in June 2006 by Sony and pioneer.
Initially, the idea behind a BD was to create a storage device which looked and worked like a disc, but was capable of plating and storing HD (High Definition) information. The same thought has gone behind the evolution of BD players also. The initial players used the MPEG-2 format to play the BD, which was same as the format being used by the HD-DVD players. The picture and sound quality therefore, were not very different from an HD-DVD and the BD system scored only in terms of the storage capacity. For a player boasting of a price tag of $3000, this was not a significant selling point.
The cost was lowered and more codecs were made exclusively for the BD players in order to enhance the quality and give the consumers a better HD quality. The VC1 and the AVC are two such codecs that were employed in Sony's BWU-100A, which was the first even mass-market BD player. It was tagged at $700, and is quite an accepted market standard.
