Q: What is the BD-R/RE AV format?

A: BD-R/RE Audio Visual (BD-R/RE AV) is an application format designed to record and play back full quality high (HD) and standard (SD) definition digital television broadcasts on BD-R (recordable) and BD-RE (rewritable). It can also be used to capture SD material from analog sources and direct transfers from HDV camcorders. Typically, up to 2 hours of HD material can be stored on a 25 GB single-layer (SL) disc or 12 hours of VHS-quality SD material (double that on dual-layer discs). A basic framework for navigating the recorded material as well as destructive and non-destructive editing is also provided. Occasionally, BD-R/RE AV is incorrectly identified as BD-AV or BDAV.Whereas DVD-Video employs the ISO/IEC 13818-1 MPEG-2 Program Stream (PS) as its video and audio multiplexing format, BD-R/RE AV, however, adopts MPEG-2's Transport Stream (TS). With its smaller 188-byte packet size, ability to multiplex multiple channels and electronic program guide (EPG) information, MPEG-2 TS is better suited for recording and playing digital broadcasts. Since a digital broadcast can contain multiple television and audio channels in a full transport stream, BD-R/RE AV allows individual channels to be selected, extracted and recorded to form a partial transport stream (without the need to re-encode the audio or video). In addition to digital broadcasts, BD-R/RE AV incorporates a Self-Encoded Stream Format (SESF) for recording SD analog broadcasts and other material. With SESF, the source video signal is encoded in MPEG-2 (MP@ML) format and multiplexed with its audio (MPEG-1 Layer 2, LPCM, Dolby Digital AC-3), teletex information (PAL option only) and Tip data (video aspect ratio, copy control, coding, etc.) to again create a partial transport stream (see charts).