Welcome to the world of the Blu-ray Disc!

More than 30 years of Panasonic technology and expertise are packed into the new BD optical disc standards.

Here in this introductory section, our optical disc engineers provide some easy-to-understand information about the BD standards and present a number of Panasonic's unique BD-related technologies.

My name is Masayuki Kozuka, and I'll begin with a brief answer to the question of "What's the Blu-ray Disc?".

Masayuki Kozuka General Manager Storage Device Business and Alliance Development Office Global Headquarter

Today’s high-definition video equipment has made it easy to enjoy HD broadcasts and other high-quality content at home. As the content increases in image and sound quality, though, the media for recording and playing it also has to offer larger data capacity and higher speed.

The Blu-ray Disc (BD) promoted by Panasonic is a new-generation optical disc media that responds to these needs.

The Blu-ray Disc is a de facto global standard that is being developed and promoted by not only Panasonic, but by a total of 173 companies (as of June 22, 2006) around the world. These include leading electronics companies such as Hitachi, Pioneer, Sony and Sharp, and film studios such as Walt Disney Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers Entertainment.

With its 12-cm diameter, the Blu-ray Disc does not look any different from a DVD disc. There’s a major difference, however, in its storage capacity. The Blu-ray Disc is able to store 50 GB (single-side, double-layer disc) of data, as compared to the 4.7 GB (gigabytes) of the DVD disc. This is enough to record more than four hours of high-definition video with 7.1-channel surround sound onto a single disc. A single-side, 4-layer disc that will store 100 GB is also under development. In other words, the storage capacity of the Blu-ray Disc is expected to grow even larger in the future.

Connecting the world with Blu-ray Discs

In addition to storing video content, the Blu-ray Disc offers a wide range of applications, such as video games, in which BD's interactive features and large data storage can be utilized. A single Blu-ray Disc can back-up almost the entire hard disk drive of an ordinary home PC.

This Website introduces the possibilities offered by the Blu-ray Disc, describes Panasonic's disc production technologies, presents Blu-ray products for business and home use, and outlines a number of general technologies such as video authoring for packaged content.

Introduced here are a variety of the inspirations, ideas, technologies, and other breakthroughs that were achieved by a team of Panasonic developers who were guided by a common desire to bring the beauty and passion of Blu-ray images into the world’s living rooms.
Join together with these developers in discovering the remarkable depth of the Blu-ray world.