Is that Blu-ray disc?
Recently the shopping mall in Penang is selling a lot of pirated blu-ray DVD at RM 15, the cover all come with a blu-ray logo. I was really surprised at first to learn how fast they actually managed to pirate blu-ray disc, definitely relatively faster than the way we roll out our nation broadband service. The million dollar question, is that really a blu-ray disc?
I also thought it is initially, until 1 day the sales person actually told me that is a 2.5 layer DVD copied from blu-ray disc. So technically speaking, it is not a blu-ray disc, it is a DVD but the visual and audio quality is far more crispier because they actually have to use a larger capacity DVD to hold the content. Those discs can be played on normal DVD player.
Blu-ray uses blue laser to read/write disc with shorter wavelength 405nm vs DVD 650nm, hence larger capacity and hold larger resolution picture and audio. A dual-layer blu-ray disc is 50GB. A blu-ray player now costs RM 1499, from SHARP AQUOS. 1 blu-ray disc costs RM 140. These are all expensive toys for the rich people.
So those are not blu-ray, morally those discs are illegal regardless whether it is DVD-R, DVD single layer, DVD dual layer or 2.5 layer, as long as it holds a movie content without license. But on the technical side, this is indeed another innovation idea from the businessman to make more money in this difficult situation. I dont have the right equipment to test the quality of these movies, therefore I remained sceptical how good it is. Demo shows the visual quality is actually excellent, especially stands out is the audio quality.
Blu-ray or not, seeing technology advancement is fun.
