Blu-Ray is the name of a standard given by a Consortium of studios, manufacturers and other organizations, to their successor format to the DVD.
For a while we had another VHS/BetaMax battle, this time with Blu-Ray going up against another standard known as HD DVD pushed primarily by Toshiba, but with the having of support of a few studios as well.
Eventually Blu-Ray prevailed and won the battle.
Initially pushing just HD, Blu-Ray now supports 4K media as well.