First Blu-ray Burner in Q1 2006

Pioneer Electronics has announced the industries first Blu-ray Disc computer drive, sporting Blu-ray burning, for the first quarter of 2006

The new Pioneer BDR-101A will utilize shorter wavelength blue lasers in order to store up to 25 gigabytes of information on a single layer Blu-ray Disc.

Andy Parsons, senior vice president, Pioneer Electronics, USA, said, "Storage capacity in a stable medium is critical. A few years ago, no one could imagine needing more storage than available on a CD-R. Yet today, we need multiple DVDs just to back up the numerous photo and video files on our computers. Blu-ray Disc technology fulfills the rapidly growing need for more storage space and Pioneer is proud to be one of the first companies bringing it to market."

The BDR drive will be extremely fast compared to prior formats debut drives: 1xCD (0.18MB/s), 1xDVD (1.39MB/s), and 1xBD (4.56MB/s). The rotational speed reached by a 2x read Blu-ray drive is equivalent to 6.59x DVD or 51.73x CD.  

The BDR-101A Blu-ray Disc/DVD writer will read BD-ROM/R/RE at 2x.
DVD-ROM/DVD-R/DVD-RW and +R/+RW discs are also supported to be read.

It offers write speeds of 2X for BD-R/RE, 8X for DVD-R/+R and 4X for DVD-RW/+RW

The drive also supports DVD-R DL and DVD+R DL, while CD-R, CD-RW and DVD-RAM are not supported.