Pioneer to Launch Blu-ray Drive in First Quarter of 2006

Pioneer today announced the BDR-101A, one of the industry's first Blu-ray Disc computer drives. The drive will primarily be targeted to professional users and serious enthusiasts, generally the first to adopt new technology. In particular, content creators will depend on Blu-ray Disc writers to test and evaluate high definition consumer Blu-ray Disc titles during the authoring process before replication. 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. The drive, which will come equipped with a data recording application to transfer digital files to Blu-ray Discs, is expected to begin shipping in the first quarter of 2006.