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Major releases still coming out, and enthusiasts collecting discs:
20 years ago today, the CES in Las Vegas was buzzing with talk of Blu-ray technology, players, and media. Several years in the making, Blu-rays arrived with considerable industry backing, with "seven out of the eight major movie studios announced movie titles for the launch," reports Blu-ray.com. This successor to the DVD offered improved density and thus capacity vs earlier optical formats, largely thanks to the development of blue‑violet laser diodes – hence the name.
Blu-ray discs boosted single layer media capacity to 25GB, vs 4.7GB for DVDs, using a new 405nm blue‑violet laser combined with more advanced materials. The shorter wavelength enabled a higher numerical aperture for more pits per sq mm. This was complemented by a tighter track pitch and a thinner (but harder) protection layer to boost capacity tenfold (comparing single-layer media).
Moreover, Blu-ray's base speed was significantly boosted, with the older DVD standard offering 11 Mbps, but the new format raising the bar to 36 Mbps. Better quality video was also delivered thanks to Blu-ray's adoption of the AVC (H.264) codec. It retained MPEG-2 compatibility, but AVC facilitated more efficient HD video file playback at manageable bitrates.
Blu-ray's success wasn't inevitable, as a rival faction of electronics companies and movie studios would ignite a high‑profile format war. Much like the VHS vs Betamax videotape format war, there could only be one winner, and Sony was on the winning side this time, being one of the biggest backers of Blu-ray. Console gamers of the late noughties became well aware of this format war, as it would also divide the PlayStation and Xbox camps.
Blu-ray's superior capacity, default console integration, copy protection, and broader studio support would mean that this format war was quite brief, with Toshiba conceding in early 2008.
Since its introduction, Blu-ray has been iterated and improved with 4K Blu-ray packing HEVC, HDR and more features into the format starting about a decade ago.
Its bitrates are still considerably better than the best mainstream streaming quality available, so it remains a cherished format among home cinema enthusiasts. Thus, Blu-ray media still clings onto some relevance in 2026, with collectors and bandwidth‑limited regions keeping the format alive. It is also still available as the physical media distribution format for some modern consoles.
Its days look numbered, though, if we look at various industry trends. Console makers are pulling away from physical media, including Blu-ray distribution, for example. Also, we saw news of Sony ending recordable Blu-ray production in 2025, and LG ending production of Blu-ray players in late 2024. Changes like this put several sturdy nails in this optical disc format's coffin.
It seems like an age since PCs last came with Blu-ray (or any optical) disc apparatus built-in. That excludes Japan, for some reason, where we recently noticed optical drive demand surged (inc Blu-ray compatible) coinciding with the end of support for Windows 10.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday January 07, @01:06PM (3 children)
I like the idea. Not sure about the financials.
A BD-R is one time use and pretty slow and each blank costs about $1 to $2 for 25 gigs.
Today Amazon is delivering me some generic "Amazonbasics" 128G USB3 flash drives for $15 each. So around five times the storage for around ten times the cost, its twice the cost per bit but its SO convenient to backup at USB3 speeds, no moving parts, takes up less space, etc. I could pay more for name brand or less for fake knockoffs that don't work, this seems a reasonable strategy. What I need to back up will fit on the 128G although the 256G is cheaper per bit.
Its interesting that treating USB sticks as one time use is more or less competitive with optical tech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Wednesday January 07, @03:17PM (1 child)
Be careful though with using Flash for backups. They are known to lose their state (charge) just sitting in storage, so bit-rot is a serious issue. Optical and magnetic media is not like that, it generally will hold its data for decades. Flash is probably OK for short term backups (e.g. 6-monthly refreshes, but remember each read/write wears out the Flash as well) but I would not trust it for long term backups.
I've actually found some old scratched DVDs and CDs I burned 20+ years ago in a box and have been loading them into my NAS. Each and every one has preserved the data perfectly, from the name-branded "archival" disks to the cheap silver CD-Rs I bought at the local flea-market for disposable use (they have turned kind of rust-yellow with age but can be read fine). I even found things like a CD full of old Winamp2 skins, some of which are not even on archive.org (but its cool Audacious can still load Winamp2 skins, so I get a hit of Nostalgia now when I listen to some music).
Plus these disks were not even carefully stored, in fact I completely forgot I had them. They had been bundled with a pile of old junk and shifted across the continent on 5 different occasions as I relocated over the years, yet the data survived.
I had a similar experience with HDDs, the magnetic storage systems also can persist for decades (after all that is why backup tapes are also magnetic), the issue there is more with stuck bearings or failed arms.
Even the interfacing is not a big issue (despite "how to read from obsolete media" being a long standing concern back in the day) because while no motherboard has IDE ports any more, you can find everything from USB/IDE adaptors to actual IDE PCI-Express cards online to give you the interface you need to get the data off the devices.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday January 07, @08:54PM
Yeah I know. Its good for offsite in case of a catastrophe.
Really we need two words, one for archival where you delete the working copy and the only copy exists on the backup media, and one for copies of the working copy that you could theoretically run a verify against. Flash will work for the latter, less so for the former.
"copy, delete the original to save space, save the offline copy elsewhere" vs "copy, save both copies"
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Wednesday January 07, @11:05PM
Just want a fairly reliable medium to store really essential files offsite in case my house burns down. Mostly financial documents, maybe some design files from personal projects. No videos or anything huge in size.
It works because I don't have a lot of data to store. If I had more, would be tempted to use tape, but the drives are really expensive.