BenQ To Ship Blu-ray Burner By Year’s End

BenQ says it's preparing to ship a half-height Blu-ray disc burner by the end of 2006.

At a Taipei news conference today, BenQ CEO K.Y. Lee showed off a prototype half-height disk burner which can read and write Blu-ray disk as well as standard CD and DVD media. Lee said the company plans to ship the unit by the end of 2006. Lee declined to provide pricing information for the Blu-ray drive, noting that the eventual cost will be determined by the price of the drive’s read/write head.

Lee also said BenQ’s support for Blu-ray isn’t necessarily exclusive, although BenQ has supported Blu-ray over the competing HD DVD format. Lee noted he felt BenQ will probably have to support both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats, and expects that future burners will be able to read and write both formats.