Is your Blu-ray player gathering dust? Turn it into a laser scanning microscope

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Blu-rays have never quite succeeded in fully spoofing DVDs. Recent estimates, based on data collected by Nielsen VideoScan and MediaPlayNews, suggest that in Q2 2022, DVD still controlled 51.4% market share, compared to Blu-ray's 48.6%. And whichever format has the biggest share, the physical media pie is shrinking. So if your Blu-ray player has gone from the centerpiece of your home theater to an ornament that attracts dust, a clever hacker knows exactly what to do with it.

As spotted by Hackster.io this week, a YouTuber named Doctor Volt recently detailed his two-part journey of turning a Samsung BD-J5900 Blu-ray player into a laser scanning microscope.

Enlarge / Doctor Volt used the DIY laser scanning microscope on a piece of fabric. Doctor Volt/YouTube

One of the main advantages of the laser scanning microscope over optical microscopes is that the latter achieves a maximum magnification of 1,500 times, as noted by Gizmodo. Dr. Volt says they are unsure of the magnification of their DY microscope, but told a commenter that "it can resolve structures about 5 micrometers in size".

The Doctor Volt hack was doable because Blu-ray players and laser scanning microscopes work the same way. To quickly simplify, Blu-ray players fire lasers at Blu-ray discs, and depending on how hard the light is reflecting off the player's optical pickup unit, its sensors may read a 1 or a 0. /p>

Enlarge / The optical drive unit inside the Blu-ray player. Doctor Volt/YouTube

But since the optical pickup unit sensors are actually non-binary and can measure varying amounts of reflected light, Blu-ray players are poor candidates for laser scanning microscopes fortune.

As Hackster.io explains, "By running the same process and recording each intensity measurement...