Pioneer will soon be
following up its current next generation Blu-ray writer with a model that
supports Dual Layer Blu-Ray media the BDR-102. While this may excite some
users the most exciting announcement is that they plan to release new
drives sometime next year that can also handle the competing HD-DVD
format.
The first new drive that
Pioneer will release is the BDR-102 which will add support for the CD-R/RW
format which their current drives lack. The BDR-102 will ship sometime next year
and may be released in two types one that supports IDE and the other that
supports SATA. The writing speeds have not been released and its not known how
fast it will write to single or dual layer Blu-Ray discs.
But the most
exciting piece of hardware is probably the BDR-103 which will
integrate support for both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats into one drive. No
specifications have been released and its not known if it will still support
CDR/RW and what speeds will be available.
The first new drive, the BDR-102 will also support DVD, presumably recordable and rewriteable versions of the format as well as pre-recorded discs. |
It looks like Dual format
drives are going to be the mainstream just like we have +R and -R, and I
wouldn't be surprised if it isn't long before Dual format players start
appearing either. So really the format war that is meant to be looming may not
be a difficult choice for consumers after all especially if devices support both
formats. It may end up like the +R / '“R war irrelevant unless you have bought
first generation hardware.
Source: The Register
