Backed by Sony, Samsung, Disney and 20th Century Fox, Blu-ray is one of 2 new High Definition DVD formats coming to the UK soon. Blu-ray systems use a blue-violet laser, similar to the one used for HD DVD, to read and write data, conventional DVDs and CDs use red and infrared lasers. Blu-ray discs can store about 9 hours of high definition video on a single layer 50 GB disc, this is considerably more than DVD's 4.7 GB. The major contributing factor to the possible success of Blu-ray will be the inclusion of a Blu-ray drive in the forthcoming Playstation 3 from Sony, thanks to Playstation large gamer following.
HD DVD
Backed by Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo, HD DVD also uses a blue-violet laser, but only holds 15 GB on a single layer disc although still plenty for high definition video. HD DVD is also being backed by Microsoft and Intel, with Microsoft releasing a seperate HD DVD drive for the XBox 360 in the future.
Format War
Who will win the format war? Until we start seeing the hardware and media appearing in the UK it's difficult to make a judgment. Although Blu-ray does seem to have the most backing and with the Playstation 3 due out next year, I think Blu-ray might just have it.
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