Pioneer Corporation has confirmed its half-height BDC-202 Blu-ray/DVD combo drive will be available to OEMs and systems builders beginning in the second quarter of 2007, meaning it will show up in consumer PCs and notebooks shortly thereafter. The drive aims to make Blu-ray DVD support more prevalent in the PC industry by bringing Blu-ray capabilities out of the high-end systems and towards consumer-oriented systems: users will be able to use the drive to read CD, DVD, and Blu-ray content, as well as write data to standard DVD media. But don’t let the "combo" monicker fool you: there’s no HD DVD support here.
"Blu-ray is in pole position to capture demand for HD movies: it’s supported by seven out of the eight major Hollywood studios. We’ve ensured that BDC-202 is price competitive to existing next generation drives so systems builders can enable consumers to access this extensive catalogue of Blu-ray titles in stunning quality," says Chris Tampsett, Director, Pioneer Europe Multimedia Division. "And with DVD and CD read/write compatibility, the drive provides a compelling mix of high-quality entertainment and practicality."
Pioneer’s BDC-202 will read BD-ROM and BD-R/-RE media at 5×, while handling dual-layer BD media at 2× speeds. Forget about writing to Blu-ray media: the BDC-202 aims to make Blu-ray affordable by omitting Blu-ray burning capability. The unit will read DVD-ROM and DVD±R as 12× (also writing to the latter at 12×), while reading DVD-±RW at 8× (writing at 6 ×), and reading and writing DVD-RAM at 5×; dual-layer DVDs get read at 8× and written at 4×. Still have standard CDs? You can read them at 32×, and write CD-R and CD-RW at 24×.
