Pioneer Electronics just sent out an interesting announcement regarding their Blu-ray BD-ROM / DVD-RW combo drive. According to their press release, the BDC-S02 combo drive can now be purchased for less than €150 or £100 in Europe. While it is still somewhat more expensive than a plain DVD-RW drive, the price range of Blu-ray equipment is getting more and more appealing for the average consumer. Obviously the Blu-ray camp is now in a big hurry to push the format main stream, before any potential alternatives for high definition media delivery appear on the market – and we are not talking about optical disc formats, but download based solutions, solid state technology and so on.

Following recent media speculation that Blu-ray is becoming the primary standard for playback and recording of HD High-Definition (HD) content, consumers can not only buy systems in confidence, the technology is becoming more affordable too: Pioneer’s Blu-ray ‘Combo’ drive for PCs that plays Blu-ray movies and writes to DVD has fallen below the £100 mark.

The Blu-ray Combo drive has the appearance of a DVD or CD and is easily fitted into any standard PC drive bay in around 10 minutes. Multimedia PCs are designed to complement home environments and are increasingly geared for movie playback from the Blu-ray Combo drive with powerful processors, graphics and sound cards complemented by contemporary flat screen displays. Such PCs are also easily connected to living room entertainment set-ups so users can enjoy the ultimate movie experience on their HD-ready flat screen TVs.

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‘Blu-ray has developed unstoppable momentum and media and analysts have predicted that the technology is rapidly becoming the de-facto HD storage and playback format if it’s not already.’ says Chris Tampsett, Sales Director, Pioneer Europe Multimedia Division. ‘As well as the surety that they are buying a product that has widespread and pretty much unanimous support among move studios, consumers can now enjoy breathtaking HD movies whether on their monitor or living room TV for less than £100. Add in high-quality DVD writing and the product is a great way for end users to see why HD is causing so much excitement.’

Source: Pioneer Europe