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What format will Blu-ray discs be available in?

Blu-ray plans to follow the route of DVDs and will provide a range of formats including ROM/R/RW. The following formats are part of the Blu-ray Disc specification:

BD-ROM - read-only format for distribution of HD movies, games, software, etc.
BD-R - recordable format for HD video recording and PC data storage.
BD-RE - rewritable format for HD video recording and PC data storage.

What is the data storage capacity of a Blu-ray disc?
A single-layer Blu-ray disc can hold 25GB.
A dual-layer Blu-ray disc can hold 50GB.
In the future simply by adding more layers to the Blu-ray discs the capacity can be increased to up to 200GB.

What is the difference between 1080i and 1080p?
Blu-ray Disc offers 1080p video resolution—HDTV video quality that far surpasses any other medium or broadcast format available today. With a resolution of up to 1920x1080 and up to 54 Mbps bandwidth (roughly double that of a normal HDTV broadcast), no other format can match the video quality of Blu-ray Disc. Depending on the application, Blu-ray Disc also supports other video formats, including standard definition TV.
1080i refers to the resolution of a picture with interlaced (i) fields, which fit together to form one full frame and produces an image that has a TV-like quality. 1080p refers to the resolution of the picture with progressive (p), multiple full frames, producing an image that appears more like film.

What do I need to know about Blu-ray on my PC?

Computer based playback has some strict hardware requirements, including a fast CPU, lots of RAM and a HDCP enabled graphics card and monitor. Currently, PowerDVD Ultra from Cyberlink, WinDVD 9 Plus Blu-ray from Corel and Arcsoft Totalmedia Theatre are the players of choice available for PCs.