Media War Warm Up

Decato | 13 Apr 2006 - Few days ago TDK Corporation anounced that it has started shipping Blu-ray recordable media to retailers in US, the first batch consist of 25GB BD-R and BD-RE (wonder why they call it RE instead of RW). Retail pricing is kinda steep, being new technology and all, BD-R is set at $19.99 and BD-RE at $24.99 (around RM80 and RM100 respectively… OUCH!). 50GB version will arrive later this year, pricing … I rather not know.

So, some might ask, how much is the burner then ? Well, Samsung SH-B022, which is suppose to come out this month, is rumoured to be USD500. While Pioneer BDR-101/2A was expected to be USD995 (OUCH !!!). BenQ showed off BW1000 last year but after the “Strategic Alliance” with Lite-On, who knows? Fujitsu also declared itself to be the first to bring Blu-ray readied PC to the market, their main competitor being Toshiba who announced HD DVD product just one day before. There’s also a PC/TV hybrid coming out from Fujitsu according to DailyTech.

Well, I know one thing for sure, I ain’t buying any of them just yet, not at that price range…