It looks like OcUK will be selling these in the near future as you can pre-order them now: Pioneer BDR-101A 2x BD-R/RE Blu-Ray DVD Writer (CD-034-PO) The Pioneer BDR-101A Blu-ray Disc/DVD writer is expected to revolutionize digital and high-definition media storage. The BDR-101A allows professional users to test & author high-definition Blu-ray Disc content while also delivering the ability for high-capacity data storage. The drive can read BD-ROM discs, read/write single layer BD-R & BD-RE discs, read DVD-ROM, and read/write most DVD recordable media formats. - BD-R: 2x - BD-RE: 2x - BD-R Read: 2x - DVD+R: 8x, DVD-R: 8x - DVD+R DL: 2.4x, DVD-R DL: 2x - DVD+RW: 4x, DVD-RW: 4x - DVD-ROM Read: 8x - BD Buffer Size: 8MB - DVD Buffer Size: 2MB Price: £579.95 (£681.44 Including VAT at 17.5%)
People can get an X1900XT Xfire with that amount or at least get eight Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB HDD have a nice 2560 GB of storage.. I guess I can live until some competition kicks in and prices drops to sub £100
of course its gonna cost ya, its new tech... when CD-R drives first launched they were £1500 ish ... and 1x speed flickign through my old Atari ST catalogues the other day (clearout) i saw an advert for floppy drives... 5.25" floppy drives at so and so (was expensive) and NEW 3.5" drives ... £150ish
Think i will stick with DVD for now. Dolnt think DVD writers wre ever that expensive were they? Got my first one 3 years ago, a 2.4x Richoh + format drive. Only paid £150 for it.
What's the point when you can only really get HD porn on blue ray or HD DVD atm. Oh hang on ... it all makes sense! Still - £681, thats a lot of nights down spearmint rhino's if you are that way inclined!
To be honest I think that price isn't that bad, problem is what are you going to put on these discs, there is no way to capture HD video to write to these blu ray discs. HEADRAT
'BD-R: 2x' how long does that take to burn? Honestly, I don't see myself jumping on this bandwagon even when prices come down. I mean with that amount of storage, the more I’m likely to loose in any disaster imaginable (even/especially the occasional friend who loves 2 borrow) Thing is, I know I'll eat my own words
The first consumer DVD-RW (Pioneer A03) was about the same cost when it came out - 2001 ish, but dropped to about £400 after 3 months. It took the first DVD+RW drives to get prices down to a reasonable level. If somebody can get DVD-HD out as well over the summer then prices will be accpetable by Christmas
Crikey at the price of that lol. Think ill hang fire on this one and wait till the technology is much better/faster and alot cheaper lol. Reminds me when cd writers first came out, silly prices for outdated technology...5 yrs later and the prices had come to being just about affordable and the technology was faster.
Apparantly this drive will "only" allow you to burn 25gb on a single layer blu-ray disc and it takes about 45 minutes.
It wont be long before the speed increases. They burn much faster than dvds did at release and they are already working on 12x speed.
So exactly what "high definition" material are you going to be able to put on such a device, from what source? HEADRAT
Probably illegally downloaded hd versions of movies, recorded hdtv programs, video footage taken with your hd digital camera, game footage you have taken with your pc, but for now I will think that the main purpose will be for backing up files and transferring large files to other pcs.
