Pioneer Ships First Blu-ray Computer Drives

May 17, 2006 By Digital Trends Staff

The new BDR-101A is capable of burning up to 25GB of information onto a single layer Blu-ray Disc.

Pioneer Electronics said today they’d begun shipping the industry’s first Blu-ray Disc computer drive. The new BDR-101A will come bundled with Sonic Solutions’ Roxio Blu-ray Disc software and blank media from TDK.

The BDR-101A, said Pioneer, is geared towards professional users and technology early adopters looking for large amounts of storage. This drive, using Blu-ray Disc specific media, can burn up to 25GB of information to one single layer disc. Besides being able to read and write Blu-ray Discs, the BDR-101A can also read DVD-ROM as well as read and write to most DVD recordable formats.

“As we move deeper into the transition to high-definition content creation and distribution, increasing storage capacity will become more and more critical,” said Andy Parsons, senior vice president at Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc, in a statement. “Blu-ray Disc technology fulfills the rapidly growing need for additional storage space and Pioneer is proud to be one of the first companies bringing it to market through the BDR-101A.”

Showing 6 comments

victor at 3:18pm 18th May 2006 Aha! These have popped up on online stores already and are priced at $999. Jessica wins!
Matt at 9:35am 18th May 2006 I would throw my guess at 599.99, any takers?
Jessica at 12:44am 18th May 2006 When DVD-RAM's came out, they were $1000. I can easily see this drive costing somewhere around $800-1000 because of the early adoption. It's probably not worth buying right now IMHO since in about a year or two they'll double the speeds of writes, etc.
Ian Bell and Dan Gaul at 1:06pm 17th May 2006 Hmm maybe $199 is still too low. I would not put it over $299 if they want to be successful though IMO.
victor at 12:41pm 17th May 2006 I would have to think it's going to cost a whole lot more than $199. If it does come out at that price, it will undermind Sony's pricing justification on the PS3 and all the new Sony computers they've recently announced. Based on Sony's pricing, you would expect the the drive to cost $800 or more (which is completely crazy). I'm going to say the starting price is $400-500. Once Lite-On joins the game then we'll start seeing those crazy $199 or less prices.
Ian Bell and Dan Gaul at 12:02pm 17th May 2006 Can anyone guess what the price of these will be? I put my money on $199. I would prefer a black faceplate to match my system too...