Blu-ray Disc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray

Music music data distributed on mass produced plastic discs of increasing complexity with tighter laser spot technologies ending with the blue-violet 405nm diodes ^^



Laser Data Storage Technology

780nm infrared laser CD of 700 MB in 1982
650nm red laser DVD of 8.5 GB in 1995
405nm blue-violet laser Blu-ray 25 GB, 50 GB, 100/128 GB (BDXL) in 2006

I think that Blu-ray is going to be the last disc data format for content distribution. Other optical data storage formats will emerge, notably storing hundreds of TB of data in small pieces of crystal, but today the drives that enable IO of holographic data to Quarts crystal too expensive for practical applications.

Movie & Pen Laser

I found my 405nm laser pen this morning while looking for a UV led flashlight that I misplaced. The pen laser was a cheap $6 unit from Amazon made in China with a diode module from manufacturing defect blue-ray players. I fired it up and pointed the beam into a fluorescent orange microfiber rag, a quantum mechanical optical phenomenon called photon frequency multiplication was observed, the 405nm laser provoking the fluorescent emission of bright ~600nm orange light from the rag. This caused me to think of blu-ray discs, having watched the movie "Edge of Tomorrow, Live, Die, Repeat" last night on our Sony BDP-360 blu-ray player via a disc in our collection. If the internet ever goes offline, these discs are the only practical media other than home made movies on our computers that we would be able to watch for enjoyment. Similarly if the power went off, I have a properly sized UPS 2.1kWh system to power our TV and blu-ray player!

405nm Laser & Fluorescent Orange Microfiber Rag 

405nm Violet Laser into Fluorescent Orange Microfiber Rag

Data Density

Going from CD to DVD improved data density by about 12x. Going from DVD to Blu-ray improved data density by about 6x. The advent of 4K TV and monitor technology means that blu-ray discs are going to have to serve up 4x more data than they did to pump a 1080P experience. I regularly use a 5K display iMac that shipped without an optical drive. Movie theaters often project 8K content from a hard-drive. Interesting times ^^

Capturing UHD

The cameras that shoot 8K content are exotic and expensive data monsters with super speed SSD storage medium :P  like the Red Weapon S35 Helium, which makes me wonder when film loyal directors in Hollywood will be willing to go fully digital.

Red Digital Cinema Camera 

A defense of film mediums by the director of Inception, the black tea enthusiast Christopher Nolan. He argues that even today in 2016 film as the source origin source format, provides much better color quality, greater hue depth, better natural looking resolution, less noise, high quality frames, and this is especially true for medium format film used in IMAX cameras that shoot the eq of 12K video!

Older 3D Imax Camera 

Film Dying

The death of Kodak as a corporation was accompanies by the sweeping changes in the ways that I did photography throughout my life so far, going from 35mm film to early digital cameras. My best digital camera today, a Canon T5i does not match my ancient Canon AE1 film camera in terms of optical performance, full frame film is able to capture remarkable photo detail with a good lens!

Digital Imaging Sensors

Digital camera sensors evolved from aerospace defense espionage sensory technology, made affordable by Lithographic IC mass production technology that Intel pioneered! It is amazing how fast technologies have been developed, producing meaningful change in the lives of so many people. Even this blog part of a new way to publish information owing to the diffusion of technology across cultures all around the world! My blog audience is international in nature! Capturing light as data, it is an interesting concept. TV really got the ball rolling even before spy satellites! There was even mechanical TV before digital technology!

Looking 20:20

A lot of different things to think about if you just stop and consider something as simple as a blu-ray disc!

The history of science and technology is remarkably interesting, millions of hard working scientists and engineers, working across time, building upon the innovations that are translated into applications, new things become possible as new technologies become available.

Sequence your DNA

Today you can even have your personal genome sequenced by 23 & me, just be aware that they sell your data to pharmaceutical companies in order to give you that $99 upfront price for the service. If they charged you the full price for the procedure, it would cost more like $1000.

To Know

People really want to understand thinking because they like to experience the greater understanding. New ways of thinking become possible as you engage powerful ideas. That was the spirit behind this blog, to share interesting ideas that had the potential to provoke other people into Thinking About It, about anything, thought the most powerful feature of human cognition! To look upon, you tell me, why do people want to look at things? gawkers ? what does it mean to want to see something? Art

I will keep digging for a deeper understanding of existence because I want to know how things got to where they are, I want to be able to see more clearly where things are going. I like to be able to have a sense for how big I am in relation to the earth, extremely small. I like the feelings produced by knowing that life is ephemeral and full of risks. I really like knowing that no one has all the answers! Our little human brains only able to store about 700 TB of information. Samsung just launched an enterprise SSD that holds 60 TB. IBM Watson can run on about 16 TB of ram. Singularity is not far off, go watch Ex Machina is you want to get a media glimpse into what I am talking about!