Pioneer Electronics has announced it will offer its BDC-2202 Blu-ray computer drive to U.S. consumers next month for a suggested price of $299. The drive can read BD-ROM, BD-R, and BD-RE media at up to 5× speeds, and handle double-layer BD-ROM and BD-R/-RE media at 2× speed. The drive does not offer Blu-ray burning capabilities, but for the purposes of movie playback or accessing data stored on BD media, the drive—and its low price point—may be a hit with PC enthusiasts. The drive can burn content to standard DVDs and CDs.
“With the BDC-2202, computer savvy consumers are now privy to what was previously only available to professional users,” said Andy Parsons, senior VP at Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc., in a statement, “In addition to maintaining the same benefits of current optical disc drives, the included software means users can now enjoy their favorite Blu-ray Disc movies as well as their own personal disc creations.”
Pioneer plans to ship the BDC-2202 with software which enables users to burn movies directly from a digital camcorder to DVD media using a Direct-to-Disc feature; the software bundle will also enable users to create their own DVD-based movies and slideshows, back up computer data, and create and burn music CDs.
