DVD and Blu-ray

Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) contains 26 times the capacity of CDs that allows for much better quality graphics and audio. DVDs have various formats:

• DVD-Video – succeeds VHS tapes
• DVD-ROM – Read only Memory
• DVD-R – Recordable one time
• DVD-RW – Recordable and re-writable

Blu-ray is the latest generation of optical media, doubling its capacity to 50 GB and increasing the bit rate to six times the rate of DVDs. Blue-ray uses a blue laser instead of the red laser technology used by CDs and DVDs. Blue-ray players are backwards compatible, so they can read CDs and DVDs.