“Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. plans to ship in the first quarter of next year a Blu-ray Disc computer drive for storing high-definition video content. The Pioneer BDR-101A is the company’s first optical disc drive launched in the midst of an industry split over future standards for high-definition storage discs. Dell, Apple Computer and Pioneer are the heavyweights supporting Blu-ray, while Microsoft, Intel, Toshiba and NEC back the HD DVD standard,” Antone Gonsalves reports for TechWeb News. “The BDR-101A uses shorter wavelength blue lasers in order to store up to 25 gigabytes of information.”
Gonsalves reports, “The BDR-101A will read standard DVDs, as well as Blu-ray discs. Pricing was not disclosed.”
Full article here.
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Related articles:
Forrester Research: Apple-backed Blu-ray will win over Microsoft-backed HD DVD – October 20, 2005
BusinessWeek: ‘it looks as if HD DVD’s days are numbered’ – October 07, 2005
China to develop own as-yet-unnamed DVD format; Blu-ray vs. HD DVD vs ? – October 07, 2005
Paramount’s decision gives Blu-ray slight lead over HD DVD in next gen DVD format war – October 04, 2005
Record set straight on Blu-ray Disc Association’s superior high definition format – September 29, 2005
Microsoft backs cheaper, less sophisticated, lower capacity HD DVD over Apple-backed Blu-ray format – September 27, 2005
Twentieth Century Fox joins Apple, Dell, HP, others to support Blu-ray Disc format – July 29, 2005
Poll shows Apple-backed Blu-ray preferred by consumers over HD DVD for next-gen DVD standard – July 14, 2005
Microsoft allies with Toshiba on HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray Disc backers Apple and Sony – June 27, 2005
Apple joins Blu-ray Disc Association Board of Directors – March 10, 2005
how awesome would that be in a new powerbook at MWSF: MegaDrive (Blu-Ray (read-only, i presume), DVD-burn and read, CD-burn and read)
drool…
P.S. I’m expecting it way more in 3rd quarter.
Uncle Steve,
Please give us Blu-Ray in January.
Thank you.
G-ZUS LOVES BLU-RAY!!!
Musica Obscura
Whack! Aren’t those like, really expensive?
DVD drives were expensive when they were introduced… if Apple were to add them to their models they will definately be optional, look for a 200 bucks difference. At the least.
Except that’s it being held up by DRM and M$ is throwing it’s weight around
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/27/1932232&from=rss
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/28/1831236&from=rss
I’m sure it will take a while for the prices of these drives to be low enoyugh for the average consumer. I finally bought a dual layered DVD-RW for my G4 tower. The price was great ~ 60 bucks. It will be a few years before Blu-Ray drops to that level.
Another cost is the media. Whilst single layered discs are cheap nowadays, dual layer media are still 3-5 bucks a piece. Not worth it at the moment. I wonder how much the high capacity disks will be? Another thing to consider for backup options.
I think the first major market will be HDTV quality DVDs.
The first generation of Blu-ray disks will be 25GB and 50GB (dual layers).
i don’t see how MS has anything really to do with HD-DVD. Just because they can bundle it into Vista and somehow “force” the OEMs to include it in their PCs dosn’t mean it can help gain leverage. First of all, Vista is at least a year off, and wouldn’t bundling it just cause more legal woes for MS?
Plus, isn’t the entertainment industry mostly in it for Blu-Ray? That most certainly oudoes anything Microsoft can dish out to lock people into one product (even though they’re quite good at it).
As for the DRM- F*ck it. There is no way you can keep all of your content to yourselves. We will get around, under, and through your protection no matter what.
Quote “how awesome would that be in a new powerbook at MWSF: MegaDrive (Blu-Ray (read-only, i presume), DVD-burn and read, CD-burn and read)”
I’ve heard that Blu ray was designed to be r/rw read/write on every drive from the beginning, so I think all drives will be write. I know this one is. From blu ray.com “The half-height BD/DVD writer supports recording of BD-R/BD-RE at 2x speed, DVD±R at 8x speed and DVD±RW at 4x speed. The drive also reads BD-ROM discs at 2x speed and DVD-ROM discs at 12x speed.”
Note the absence of CD’s. I’m hoping that is an ovesight, but I’m afraid these won’t have cd burners/readers. Then again a wicked fast internal CD drive is now 30 bucks so maybe that fault isn’t that important. It’d be nice to have BR-DVD, DVD, CD support in one drive though. Especially for those of us who want dual optical drives. I don’t want to have to have dual DVD and dual CD drives, and I think it’s impossible on macs and 99% of PC hardware.
The pioneer site doesn’t clarify, as far as I can tell.
And so do music lovers. I bet this drive has CD-R/W too.
Neil:
What DL DVD drive did you get that’s made for the Mac?
Most of the drives I see out there are PC only (Sony, Magic, etc.)
Can anyone give me some suggestions, esp. at the under $100 range.
Thanks!
MDN Magic Word: Less
As in Less is More
At least Blu-Ray drives will be in Dells.If everyone who buys a Dell wants to buy Blu-Ray discs, then that’s a lot of demand, and therefore support for the standard.
M$ is on the board that is dictating how the DRM on both HD-DVD and BlueRay will work.
M$ is throwing it’s weight around because they don’t want BlueRay and do want HD-DVD. Which they of course will have even more control.
It’s because of DRM demanded of Hollywood that Apple had to crawl to Intel because Intel wouldn’t share the HDCP content protection they created with IBM, so IBM bailed out of the PC buisness and didn’t bother making a cool G5 dual core for Apple laptops.
When Hollywood only endorsed HDCP and Intel, it set the stage for everything we see now.
DRM is ruining everything as it’s being used as a means of control.
Just look at what Apple grabbed with Fairplay.
People bitch because Apple didn’t license their DRM, but it’s nothing compared to what Intel and Hollywood has done.
Content is king, the hardware is nothing.
Apple wouldn’t have been nowhere with the iPod if the labels didn’t supply the music. And the only reason they did was because they believed with Apple’s small market share it was a worthy experiment.
Little did they know Apple was going to jump to the Windows camp and rule the online music distribution world. If they would have know that they wouldn’t have done it.
Now that Apple proved people will buy content online in droves, it opened the door and now it’s TV’s turn (which is free/advertisement income generated anyway)
Next to woo Hollywood movies, but that will require strict DRM that only Intel chips provide.
And we come full circle.
matrix3: you can install any IDE optical drive into a mac and get read capability – writing might be a different issue. a compatability list can be found at xlr8yourmac. the url is:
http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/drivedb/search.drivedb.lasso
a good number of drives, even “PC only” ones, will work like a charm with your mac.
Matrix3 – I got my drive from otherworldcomputing:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/superdrives/
They have a pretty good site which allows you to check for compatibility.
I rarely use DVD-R’s to store stuff. Most things can fit onto a CD-R, for half the price. Blu-ray would only be used for HD movies, and some lonely IT guy backing up the server.
Has no one noticed?
Apple backs Blu-Ray
Intel backs HD-DVD
Which ever comes out on top, Apple+Intel wins.
Matt, Neil:
Thanks for the info.
I know M$ and intel seemed to be fence sitters for a while. Basically, M$ doesn’t even plan on shipping an HD-DVD game playing xbox 360. Remember, the current units are just maxed out dvd-9.
OTOH. Sony IS going to ship Blu-Ray in their PS3 AND they are going to offset the price of the machine w/ that subsidy. Movies in UMD (proprietary as can be) are actually selling and Blu-Ray, besides being technically superior, will be: 1) entrenched in the market (see PS3), 2) Provided with tons of content (See Sony Entertainment holdings), and 3) simply the best bet.
Does it matter? If Blu-Ray wins out entirely then we will have the same systems on any personal computers…no:
DVD-R, then DVD+R, then DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-#, DLDVD-R, DLDVD+4…I mean I know it’s versatile disk, but having pc and macs not be on the same plus or minus was just wrong.
It matters that Blu-Ray wins quickly and it doesn’t matter at all that sony is the company pushing it.