After numerous delays that prompted speculations about its chances of winning the format war against the rival HD DVD standard, Blu-ray drives are starting to appear in the market. We finally managed to get one from LG that is capable of a record 4x Blu-ray write speed. Read on for our impression of this new drive. So what's the fuss about this new Blu-ray format? First, capacity has been increased from the present 8.5GB limit on dual layer DVDs to a whopping 25GB for a single layer Blu-ray. Dual layer Blu-ray discs are double that capacity at 50GB. This is done by the use of blue laser diodes (hence the name), which have shorter wavelengths compared to the red ones used in current DVD technology. This results in greater data density, since the blue laser can be focused on a smaller area. It's like writing with a finer pencil; you can simply write more given the same sheet of paper. That's the abbreviated version of how Blu-ray has greater capacity over the DVD and should be all the information a casual user needs to know.

Hardware Zone