What type of equipment is needed to play a Blu-ray Disc?
You will need a BD capable player. No existing DVD player will be able to read a Blu-ray Disc, and there is no software or hardware upgrade that can be performed to enable BD playback. Buying a new player is, therefore, the only choice if you want BD playback. • What are the technical differences between DVD and Blu-ray Disc? DVD/Blu-ray Disc Format Comparison Chart Parameters DVD Blu-ray Disc Capacity per layer (GB) 4.7 25 Number of layers 1 or 2 1 or 2 Number of sides 1 or 2 1 Substrate + cover layer (mm) 0.6 + 0.6 1.1 + 0.1 Laser wavelength (nm) 650 405 Numerical aperture 0.60 0.85 Cartridge No No Hard coating needed No Yes Complexity to read DVD – More complex Data transfer rate 11.08Mbps 36Mbps Video Compression MPEG-2 MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC, SMPTE VC-1 *Recording Time (HDTV)Single-Layer – 2 hours 48 min. Dual-Layer – 5 hours 36 min. * All record times based on 19.4Mbps United States ATSC Broadcast Rate and MPEG-2 encoding. • What about my existing DVD collection? There is no official
