The greatest thing about the Blu-ray is not just its high definition media, but the high storage capacity of each blu-ray disc. Nothing more than a cd by looks alone, the beauty lies on each surface of the blu-ray disk that really holds the magic. Unlike the cd and dvd, the data on each blu-ray disk is placed above a 1.1 mm polycarbonate layer. By putting the data on the actual disk surface, the problems common to the dvd and cd playback is completely eliminated. These include disk tilt problems and birefringence or double refraction in which the laser light is split into two.

To protect the data, it is then covered with a 0.1 mm layer of polymer coating to make it scratch resistant and easily cleanable with a soft cloth. TDK uses Durabis on their blu-ray disks while Verbatim uses their own technology called ScratchGuard. The coating is still not like the DVD disk which sandwiches the data layer with two disks for protection, which are then glued together. The disk protecting the DVD data is not scratch resistant as experience has taught us. But the Durabis and ScratchGuard promises to be sandpaper proof and dust proof. Childproofing of course is a whole other technology.

A single layer blu-ray disk has been superseded by a dual layer blu-ray disk which can hold twice the data at 50GB per disk. But current developments have made strides on the super capacity of the blu-ray disk. Currently, a quad layer disk which can hold 100 GB of data has been successfully developed. Both TDK and Hitachi have developed a single sided blu-ray disk with 200GB capacity with 6 layers of 33GB. But Ritek seems to have pushed the boundaries of physics just one more time, and claim to have been successful at developing the world’s first true high density blu-ray disk. At ten layers, that’s 250 GB of pure blu-ray goodness.

But before rushing out to the stores and scoring yourselves one of these babies, you will have to keep in mind that you are still at the mercy of current blu-ray players available in the market. Most blu-ray players and recorders currently support dual layered blu-ray disks, and at a measly 4x “super” speed, you’d better be glad there’s nothing more than 50GB of blu-ray disks out on the market. Just imagine how long it will take you to burn a single 200GB blu-ray disk on 4x speed. That would take an eternity plus a lifetime.

But given the relatively shaky technological ground the blu-ray stands on, nothing is ever final. Philips has currently revealed that they have developed 7x, 10x and 12x write speeds on blu-ray discs. With the ever expanding capacity of the blu-ray looming over the horizon, speed has taken a significant role in the blu-ray development.

Currently, the only setback the blu-ray seems to have is hardware compatibility. But even that is being addressed as we speak. Stand alone players and game consoles were the first to piggyback the blu-ray disks. Recordable players, home theater systems and personal computers were next to integrate the blu-ray technology into their systems. As recent as last August, Hitachi has announced its development of the world’s first blu-ray camcorder. It would not be long before blu-ray would be completely integrated into our daily lives. It’s just a matter of when. GP