I just read this announcement about a new Blu-ray drive from Pioneer. This new Pioneer BDC-2202, priced at $300, is getting closer to the price I might pay for a new HD capable internal PC drive for my HTPC. I'd still like to see these at a little lower price and I'm sure that will happen, especially if the HPs and Dells of the world start including them in their system packages. I also expect to see the price of the HD drives follow the same downward pricing trend that happened with CD and DVD drives.
From the Times article linked above: "The BDC-2200 can both read and write Blu-ray discs and standard DVDs and CDs. It records BD-R discs — standard writable discs — at 5X (five times the speed of the first Blu-ray recorders) and writes double-layer Blu-ray discs at 2X."
Ideally, I'd like to buy a drive with the functionality of the BDC-2200 AND the ability to play HD DVD discs. It doesn't have to burn HD DVD, because the Blu-ray capacity is sufficient. Hopefully we'll see something like this from Samsung, LG Electronics or Liteon in the near future. Afterall, both Samsung and LG have announced dual Blu-ray/HD DVD format players.
UPDATE: It looks like the New York Times article was mistaken about the capabilities of this new drive. I should have checked a few other sources before writing this post. It turns out that the Pioneer BDC-2202 does not burn Blu-ray discs. I wondered why the front panel shows BD-ROM. Otherwise, it would have probably been labeled BD/DVD/CD Writer. The quoted stats for writing discs is actually the read performance. I fully expect to see lower priced drives with the ability to burn Blu-ray discs in the future. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to wait a little longer than I thought.
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