Pioneer's BDC-202 "combo" 5x Blu-ray drive

At Pioneer's CES press conference it announced both its new plasma display technology and a new half height Blu-ray drive for PCs. Titled the BDC-202 combination Blu-ray disc drive it unfortunately isn't quite the "combo" drive we might have expected. No HD DVD compatibility is in store from Pioneer but this drive is still special, able to read BD-ROM, BD-R and BD-RE discs at 5x, dual layer recordable Blu-ray discs at 2x while also service as a DVD/CD read/write drive. As long as Blu-ray is your format of choice this is the type of drive that is most likely to end up in the PC of someone who wants to watch Blu-ray movies on their PC, but doesn't need to be able to author them or back up large files. Also, by forgoing Blu-ray burning capability it should (hopefully) be significantly cheaper than current Blu-ray burners (pictured) on the market. No price yet, but the drive should be available in the second quarter of this year.

[icepop4who @ Jan 9th 2007 9:08AM]

great, another bd-burner drive. i guess blu is starting to take ground in the pc market. however, ps3 is apparently not during so well as there are 20 or so in stores all over NY. i want to see more BD readers for cheap, but i do wanna get a burner eventually

[Hugh Jass @ Jan 9th 2007 10:26AM]

This isn't a blu-ray burner. It's just a reader.