Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are two new optical storage technologies that fight as the successor of DVD. In this article you will learn everything you need to know about these technologies, including the motivations that lead to the creation of both. Is it really true that DVD has its days counted?

With the introduction of high-definition TV (HDTV) DVD storage capacity showed to be insufficient to this application. DVD supports a resolution up to 720x480 pixels, while HDTV works with resolutions as high as 1920x1080 pixels. Just to give you an idea, two hours of high-definition video with data compression requires 22 GB of storage space. Keep in mind that the maximum capacity of a DVD is of 17 GB, if a DVD-18 disc is used (keep in mind that this is a dual-sided dual-layer disc).

So how to allow a higher data storage capacity in order to support high-definition contents? Here is where two DVD successor candidates enter in scene: Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.

In fact a Blu-Ray or a HD-DVD is a DVD disc with a higher storage capacity, allowing you to store high-definition contents. It is important to remark that the main motivation to the creation of a DVD successor was the introduction of HDTV, which requires a higher disc storage capacity, feature a regular DVD cannot provide.

But how a Blu-Ray or a HD-DVD disc is able to store more data than a DVD disc? That is exactly what we will discuss in the next page.