Pioneer was excited to release more Blu-ray details today, but claims consumer Blu-ray is not ready yet
A week ago, Pioneer introduced their Blu-ray product line,
including the BDR-101A Blu-ray recorder. The BDR-101A is capable
of recording and playing 25GB Blu-ray writeable BD-R/RE discs at 2x
data transfer rates, or just about 72 Mbits/sec. Blu-ray can fit more
data on a standard DVD-sized media by using a blue laser with a shorter
wavelength instead of the traditional red laser.
Today's press conference gave us more details on the
BDR-101A, including the extremely steep $995 price tag. Then
again, if you don't mind the $50/disc cost of Blu-ray, a grand or so
for a burner might be a value. Pioneer representatives stressed that
recordable Blu-ray exists only to help get Blu-ray media out to market,
and is really only practical for studio productions. Consumer
grade Blu-ray players will not feature any recording capability, nor high definition analog audio output like those of SACD players.
Pioneer's first consumer player, the BDP-HD1, will be ready in May, and
come with a $1,800 price tag.
The BDR-101A is expected to ship within the next few months in the
US. The HD-DVD consortium is also expected to release more
"official" tidbits about HD-DVD and HD-DVDR, with players like those Toshiba
announced earlier today. As one Pioneer representative said about
Blu-ray, "[We're] confident we will preveal. Nobody wanted a format
war." With the recordable format wars starting up again, don't be
surprised if we see multi-format burners, perhaps capable of
HD-DVDR and Blu-ray. Several manufacturers we've talked to have
already hinted at adding multi-format burners to their lineup around
the second or third generation.
When asked to confirm the details on region settings on Blu-ray,
Pioneer simply stated that regional locking and zones is not yet
finalized. The news earlier this week that Blu-ray will combine
the US and Japanese regions is still unconfirmed.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
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