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The First Blu-ray Burner, Pioneer's BDR-101A
mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech has a review of Pioneer's BDR-101A-- the first Blu-ray burner available. The drive can do anything with CDs, is kind of slow with DVDs, and doesn't support double-density Blu-ray media, but hey, it's a start, and can burn 25GB in 42 minutes. Check out its burn speed benchmark performance at the link above."
...when you can set up your own distribution center: Engadget has a peek at Primera's mass Blu-ray duplication system
Primera has started shipping the world's first Blu-ray disc duplication system, the Bravo XR-Blu Disc Publisher, able to burn up to 50 discs in one session. The core of the unit is actually Pioneer's recently announced BDR-101A Blu-ray burner, but it's backed up by some sweet built-in robotics to keep the discs moving (we hope -- we've heard this things are a little buggy) and full-color direct-to-disc inkjet printing to ensure a professional-looking job. This being the first unit of its kind, however, it should come as no surprise that it only uses single-layer discs, able to store a measly 25 GB, but Primera says an upgrade will be available "shortly" to allow for dual-layer burning. And if you thought regular, single-disc Blu-ray burners were expensive, you better look away now, 'cause this beast will set you back a whopping $5295.
Sounds like we'll be seeing surprisingly cheap Blu-ray movies on Ebay any day now.
You act like the prices are really outragous, but this is what we call the "early adopter" cost. I had one of the first CD recorders, years ago (when people were still shocked there even was such a thing):
- $1995 price tag
- Could only record 650MB CD's, and at 2x speed
- Blank CD's started at $20 to $25 each.
- Could not handle rewritables, as there were none.
- No buffer underrun protection (i.e., $20+ coasters)
- The Pinnacle Micro drive I had came with super-beta software,
so you were guaranteed to get one of those pricey
coasters for every dozen disks.
The Blue Ray drive doesn't sound bad at all, in comparison. Expect media price to plummet as soon as there's competition, and expect the drives prices to drop 400% within 3 years.
Note, "HD" is possible on DVD5 or above.
Here are the steps to follow:
1. Upscale your DVD collection, writing using standard DVD's, in the DVD format, except enhanced for resolution, and perhaps formats (Perhaps Theora, DivX, MP4, in addition to MPEG2).
Call this DVD-HD.
2. Find a player that plays these DVD-HD discs. Buy this player.
3. When/If you find a commercial disc encoded with "DVD-HD", buy it as well.
4. Remember, don't buy the other HD-DRM discs (Unless it has be worked-around)
5. You can buy a DVD20 or DVD45 writer for data backups.
6. If a "DVD-HD" player is sold that plays "DVD20-HD" or DVD45-HD", buy this player.
7. Or just use VLC on a PC.
8. When/If you find a commercial DVD20 or DVD45 disc encoded with "DVD-HD", buy it as well.
0. If you bought into HD-DRM-DVD, then you expect the next step to be expiring media, then rentals only . Have fun.