Pioneer to launch Blu-ray Disc drive in January

[RadishTM Veteran]

Pioneer plans to unveil at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) its first Blu-ray Disc format optical disc drive for personal computers, it said Tuesday. The drive will go on sale in Japan at the end of January pending the completion of two licensing issues, the company said.

The BDR-101A drive is compatible with non-cartridge single-layer recordable BD-R and rewritable BD-RW discs and single and dual-layer read-only BD-ROM discs, the company said. It is also compatible with a wide range of DVD-based media and can write DVD-R and DVD-RW discs, said Pioneer.

Pioneer plans to initially offer it direct to Japanese PC makers for inclusion in their desktop computers and systems and will later expand sales to other countries, said Akira Muneto, a spokesman for Pioneer in Tokyo. It's scheduled to be available in the US during the first quarter of 2006. This schedule means that PCs on the market boasting Blu-ray Disc support could appear in the first half of 2006.

The drive will have an ATAPI interface that delivers a data transfer rate of 33MB per second, said Muneto. It's a standard "half-height" size and measures 14.8mm wide by 42mm high by 198mm deep and weighs 1.1 kilograms.

The company did not specify a price for the drive or plans for sales of the drive direct to consumers.

Delay

Pioneer's drive is the first announcement of a shipping date from any optical disc drive maker although its January schedule may be derailed by a delay in licensing of the content management system or Blu-ray Disc logo, it said.

The inability of the companies behind the AACS (Advanced Access Content System) content management system to complete their work has already caused Toshiba Corp. to put launch plans for its HD-DVD player on hold. AACS is made up of a number of companies from the electronics and content industries. The group's founders include IBM, Intel., Microsoft, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Disney and Warner Bros.

The group has declined several requests for comment or interview regarding when the first version of its format will be completed.

CES runs in Las Vegas, Nevada, from January 5 to 8, 2006.

Source - http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?home&NewsID=13451

Radish?

[Slimy]

I won't buy it for a long while, won't be needing that much space on a cd anyways. Plus, I'll be more interrested in the drives that are compatible with all the old and new formats :)

[+M2Ys4U Subscriber¹]

"It is also compatible with a wide range of DVD-based media..."

CDs obsolete now, then? heh

[Snipe]

dual-layer read-only BD-ROM

what is the capacity?

[yodat]

what is the capacity?

Just 50GB:woot:t:

[GNRambo]

what is the capacity?

I did a little research off wikipedia

A single-layer Blu-ray disc (BD) can fit 23.3, 25, or 27 GB; this is enough for approximately four hours of high-definition video with audio. A dual-layer BD can fit 46.6, 50, or 54 GB, enough for approximately eight hours of HD video. Capacities of 100 GB and 200 GB, using four and eight layers respectively, are currently being researched; TDK has already announced a prototype four-layer 100 GB disc. [2]

The BD-RE (rewritable) standard is available, along with the BD-R (recordable) and BD-ROM formats, which became available in mid-2004, as part of version 2.0 of the Blu-ray specifications. BD-ROM pre-recorded media are to be available by early 2006.

Also, in addition to 12 cm discs, an 8 cm variation for use with camcorders is planned that will have a capacity of 15 GB. [3]

To ensure that the Blu-ray Disc format is easily extendable (future-proof) it also includes support for multi-layer discs, which should allow the storage capacity to be increased to 100GB?200GB (25GB per layer) in the future simply by adding more layers to the discs. [4] Source: Wiki

[Andy07]

It will probably cost a packet :|

[Silverity]

I'd like to put one into my powerbook someday...

[Tobb555]

to bad it will be going away as soon as HD-DVD comes to maket, there can be only one

[GNRambo]

to bad it will be going away as soon as HD-DVD comes to maket, there can be only one

HD-DVD doesnt have as much storage though.....but i like how it supports more than MPEG-2 Video compression.

[Jesse Carlton]

^ yeah, cuz you know how no one ever buys vcr's or audio cassette players anymore.../sarcasm

[Doli]

to bad it will be going away as soon as HD-DVD comes to maket, there can be only one

...and without the research and development that the backers of both sides have done you just know who the winner will be.

[Borbus]

Well I won't be getting a next-gen optical drive until there is on that supports both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray or one of them dies. I think they're actually physically different unlike DVD+/-RW though, so whether there will be multi-drives or not I don't know.

[iwod]

HD-DVD doesnt have as much storage though.....but i like how it supports more than MPEG-2 Video compression.

Um.... who told you that BD ROM only support MPEG-2 Video?

[GNRambo]

Um.... who told you that BD ROM only support MPEG-2 Video?

This article

I think i might have misread it :wacko:

[L3thal Veteran]

to bad it will be going away as soon as HD-DVD comes to maket, there can be only one

Thanks for your insight, Mr. Analyst.

[Bhav]

this is good news (Y) any headstart will help it beat HD DVD and drive costs down.

[StartMeUp]

"It is also compatible with a wide range of DVD-based media..."

CDs obsolete now, then? heh

Yeh, good question, I have a lot of stuff on CD's :o Does this mean Blu-Ray Drives will not read them?

[trix]

Yeh, good question, I have a lot of stuff on CD's :o Does this mean Blu-Ray Drives will not read them?

i wanto know the answer to that question aswell, but damn that drive looks ugly o.O

[poorman]

$999 per dl.tv

[Veedems Veteran]

thread closed