What are the applications of Blu Ray and what is the future?

A lot of people are currently in that stage of "I have no idea what blu ray is and where it is going". If you read my previous blog it has some basic information about the blank media side of things, but in this blog I will write about it's applications currently and its future.

Since blu ray has hit the market there are a couple of main applications, blu ray movies, Playstation 3 games (all PS3 games are on a blu ray disc), & archival/data-storage. Duplicators and video producers aren't sure if it is time to jump into this application or to wait and see where it goes. I will tell you from my personal experience that it is becoming big now.

A lot of the blank media manufacturers are saying "It will be big for us in 2011", but they are quickly realizing they are having trouble keeping up with production. 50GB blu ray is very difficult to keep in stock, just last month we bought every bit of stock that TDK had and they won't be getting more until July/August (2x/4x that is, 6x is plentiful since it is so expensive).

Why is Blu Ray so popular right now? Well, I have a couple ideas:

The first idea I have is the "NEW" factor. Everyone wants the shiny new technology that is available and that happens to be blu ray. Since Blu Ray won the format war against HD DVD, it has picked up dramatically.

The second reason is capacity. People are quickly realizing that a single layer disc is 25gb and a double layer disc is 50gb with 100gb to come later this year (maybe). Companies are developing new applications for these high capacity discs, such as Blu Ray Jukeboxes. Disc Storage makes a Blu Ray jukebox that can hold up to 35.4TB of "revolving data". I made up the "revolving data" term, but I kind of like it. What I mean by "revolving data" is that you can store 35.4tb on RE discs (the erasable ones) and constantly replace the data with new data, or you can remove all of the discs on a BD-R disc (permanent) and archive it on a shelf so you can refill the jukebox with new blank media. This means the storage possibilities are infinite. Since backup tapes have such large sizes now for a single tape, it will take some time before optical media takes that market over, but I think tape companies are seeing blu ray as a product that is nipping at their heals. In the future I think we will be saying goodbye to LTO and DLT and hello BD (or some other form of optical disc). Tapes still have that one inherent problem, you have to scroll through the tape to find the data. No matter how fast they try to make or how effecient, optical disc will always be one step ahead and out preform against any tape product.

The third reason is High Definition. After many years of delaying the inevitable, the FCC finally had all analog transitions cut off at 11:59pm on June 12, 2009. That doesn't mean that everyone is broadcasting in high definition yet. I have a feeling it will take a lot of the networks quite some time before they do in this economy. As their video equipment starts breaking down, they will have to replace it and HD is the way to go when you are investing in new equipment. The new equipment will record in HD and HD video takes up a lot more space. DVD's will not be sufficient enough to hold 1-2 hr programs in HD so the only logical choice is blu ray. More and more video producers, even the small wedding guys out there, will be switching a lot of equipment to HD and the best current playback format for a consumer is with blu ray.

The final reason is because of Playstation 3. This game system has a blu ray drive native to the unit. All Playstation 3 games come on blu ray and the unit can also play blu ray movies. When daddy comes up to the little boys room and sees that his son's video game system has a higher quality player than his big boy setup downstairs, he will want a blu ray player. I myself bought a PS3 for my "Game Room" that the wife let me have and then I realized I was watching all of my movies in that room on a smaller TV. Naturally I decided it was stupid for me to have a 52" monster out in the main room that I never wanted to watch a movie on so I went out and purchased a blu ray player. Let me tell you, the quality of blu ray is outstanding if you have a 1080p television set.

The point of my post is that the time is now. Blu ray is picking up, people are looking for new and exciting uses for it, and everyone should at least be prepared for the cutting edge.

These are my opinions, I hope you enjoyed reading them.

What is Blu Ray, BD-R, & BD-RE?

I decided that this blog entry about blu ray would be a little more general and more about the blank media side of things than anything. A lot of the other blogs and information out there goes into specs and details of the optics of a blu ray disc and to me that is just a bunch information that most people don't care about. Blu Ray is an optical disc like a CD or DVD that holds a higher capacity. It is used for data storage backup and for high definition movies. This product is not called Blu Ray DVD or Blu DVD or HD DVD (which was a different format that lost the format war against blu ray) it is just call Blu Ray Disc.

In the blank media world there are two types of Blu Ray Disc. There is BD-R which is a Write Once blu ray disc and there is BD-RE which is a Re-Write blu ray disc. They come currently in three capacities, 7.5gb, 25gb, & 50gb with 100gb on it's way later this year (I doubt it, but that is what the manufacturer's are saying).

The discs also have different print surfaces, you can currently get Silver Lacquer, White Thermal, and White Inkjet versions of the blank media.

If you are looking for a cheap & easy disc printer, the U-Print printer from Vinpower Digital is a great solution and costs less than $100. The other great benifit of this printer is that you can buy the least expensive Silver Lacquer discs to print onto.

The printer can print in 4 different spots on the disc using a thermal ribbon which is water resistant and only prints in 1 color at a time.

Back to Blu Ray. There are many different brands of blu ray discs and a lot of people ask about our Mega Media brand of disc. This disc is a re-branded Ritek product. It comes direct from Ritek out of Taiwan and has a Ritek MID code on the disc. The 2x and 4x version are compatible with most of the newer drives out there. We have sold thousands of these discs with no returns to date, which is pretty impressive.

If you are the unlucky owner of the BDR-101A there are only a few discs that actually work in this drive. The Pioneer BDR-101A was the first commercial Blu Ray recorder at a speed of 2x. For some odd reason, Pioneer has not provided any decent firmware updates to this drive and it is only compatible with a couple MID codes including TDK 2x, Verbatim 2x, & Sony 2x. Since TDK and Sony stopped manufacturing 2x 25gb write-once media, the only real options are Verbatim and Falcon (which carries a TDK MID code).

You can also upgrade your drive to the 8x Panasonic SW-5584 which is a fantastic drive. We sell it on Mediamegamall.com for only $249.00 w/ Free Shipping. I always get this question about this particular drive so I am going to answer it. This drive IS MAC & PC compatible , all it needs is a SATA connection and either Mac OS 10.2 or higher, or Microsoft® Windows® 2000, XP.

Finally I am going to discuss the brands and differences in the quality of media & pricing. Most of the brands out there are very good. Sony still has a watchful eye on the production facilities of Blu Ray so you can expect the quality to be good for quite some time. My personal favorites are TDK, Verbatim, & our own brand. I believe these 3 brands have the best quality per $ ratio. You can bet you are getting your best bang for the buck when you buy one of these 3 brands. Falcon, Sony, etc. are also good brands but seem to be quite overpriced for what you get. TDK & Falcon also tote that they have a very scratch resistant bottom which is very true. If you are archiving this product, I would not get anything but one of these two brands. If this is something you are handing out, selling, etc. I would save the money and use the Mega Media brand of discs.

As always, I just want to remind anyone reading this blog that my information isn't always 100% accurate but these are my personal opinions based on product usage and based on my experience with media.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Who is Bart?

Everyone has been asking "Who is Bart?" so I figured I would make my first blog about me. I am 26 years old and live in Columbus Ohio. I graduated from the Ohio State University in 2005 and have been working for Mediamegamall.com ever since. I am sort of the geek around our central office, so Mediamegamall.com has me answer questions from all of it's customers on duplication, replication, equipment, blu ray, CD-R, DVD-R, USB drives, etc. I have never been in the spotlight before so this is a totally new experience for me but I do enjoy helping people find what they are looking for. I test most of the products we carry myself and soon I will start doing video reviews on all of those products. My introduction video is already on YouTube and I have posted it below:

If you ever have any questions or you would like me to test a product for you, please email me at askbart@mediamegamall.com or simply comment on my blog. Thanks again and I look forward to having many new friends!