Pioneer ships first Blu-ray drives

19 May 2006 3:00 by dRD

Pioneer announced this week that it has started shipping world's first Blu-ray Disc -compatible PC drives. The drive will be capable of burning 25GB single layer BD discs and sells for about $1,000 in the U.S. according to various retailer sites.

The drive, called Pioneer BDR-101A is extremely costly by many standards, but compared to most offerings by its rivalling HD-DVD camp, the ability to burn discs in addition to reading them, is a huge bonus to many professionals and enthusiasts. And of course, it wasn't that long ago when recordable DVD drives used to cost more than a budget PC.

The drive will ship with blank BD disc from TDK and with Blu-ray -capable software bundle from Roxio that includes tools for authoring and burning HD content to Blu-ray discs. Blank single layer Blu-ray discs cost currently appx $25 in the United States.

Source: Pioneer press release