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Sony's Blu-ray blanks on the way; 50GB in June
Not to be forgotten in the BD-R and -RE party is Sony themselves, who have announced they are shipping single-layer recordable Blu-ray discs, with dual layer versions to follow in June, The pricing follows the model set by TDK, $20/$48 for BD-R single/dual and $25/$60 for BD-RE single/dual layer respectively. With the burners going for about $850, we'll take a raincheck, unless someone really needs to back up all their episodes of mariposaHD.[Via Engadget]
IODATA launches BRD-UM2 & BRD-AM2B Blu-ray drives
Looks like Panny's not the only company showing off their Blu-ray offerings in Japan today. IODATA's got two of their own: the internal BRD-UM2, and external USB BRD-AM2B, which will go for ¥110,250 and ¥121,800, respectively (that's $942 US and $1,041 US, also respectively). Looks like these will also burn dual-layer BD-R and BD-RE media, as well as your usual DVD±RW and CD-RW, and will even beat Panasonic's offering to market by a solid 9 days with a June 1st release date. So keep an eye out with your favorite gadget importer and keep that credit card clean.[Via Impress]
Panasonic LF-MB121JD Blu-ray drive ships June 10th for $850
In what would appear to be a global release, though it's unclear from the machine translation, Panasonic just announced that they will be shipping their LF-MB121JD Blu-ray Disc drive for PCs (not to be confused with their DMP-BD10 player expected in September) in OEM, regular, and slimline slot-loading form factors, starting 10 June with support for 13 BD / DVD / CD formats. The drive delivers on both 25GB and dual-layer 50GB Blu-ray discs allowing you to write at 2x (72Mbps) speeds to both BD-R / RE formats via a suite of bundled software. It also features 8x write speeds to both DVD±R and DVD RW, 4x to DVD±R DL, 6x to DVD-RW, 5x to DVD-RAM, 24x to CD-R and 16x to CD-RW. Pretty much the same unit (and may well be) as the BenQ BW1000, but superior to both the Samsung SH-B022 (which can read but not write to DVD and CD formats) and the Pioneer BDR-101A which, oddly, the last time we looked, didn't support CDs at all. Panasonic also announced their 25GB and 50GB 2x discs which will hit the shelves starting April 28 just in time to prime the pump a bit.[Via Newlaunches]
TDK shipping Blu-ray media, still no players
Even with Blu-ray (and HD-DVD for that matter) players still MIA on store shelves, you might be able to buy the discs somewhere. They announced today they are shipping single-sided single layer (25GB) capacity discs. You can get the write-once BD-R blanks for $19.99 apiece while the rewriteable BD-RE will run you $24.99. They also announced they will ship dual-layer 50GB blanks later this year for $47.99 or $59.99 depending on -R or -RE. The discs also include DURABIS hard coating technology to protect against scratches dust and fingerprints form damaging your valuable (25 bucks a disc, yeah thats valuable) data.Eeesh. That certainly puts a damper on the whole create-my-own-archive-of-everything-ever-known-ever project. For $25 we can buy a 50 pack of single layer DVD blanks and get cases to boot. Heres to hoping prices come down (and quick).
