What is Blu-ray and what does it mean?
At its heart, Blu-ray is a technology for enjoying high-definition movies in the home. Of course, its abilities go beyond movies; like CDs and DVDs, Blu-ray discs can be used in the computer for data storage as well as other similar uses. Blu-ray was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association and was originally a competing standard against HD-DVD (which has since been effectively scrapped, leaving Blu-ray as the format of choice for HD movies). It’s called Blu-ray due to the blue-violet laser used to read the discs, in contrast to the red laser used in early optical drives such as CDs and DVDs. You may also see it referred to as Blu-ray Disc (BD).
