The first commercially available Blu-ray disc drive is yet to be 'available' in Australia
The first commercially available Blu-ray disc drive is yet to be 'available' in Australia
May 22, 2006: Sonic Solutions has shipped in the United States, its Roxio BD software with the first commercially available Blu-ray disc drive from Pioneer Electronics. However, it would take some more time for this breakthrough software is available in Australia.
According to Alexei Mazin, MD, Eureka Pacific Pty Ltd., licensing issues in Australia could hold back manufacturing and postpone the release date further. Eureka Pacific is the Australian distributor of Sonic Solutions.
The release of this product promises to take optical disc recording to a new level, making it possible for the first time the backup of 25GB of data on a single layer BD-R (recordable) and BD=RE (rewritable) disc. It would also enable applications like professional pre-mastering, high-definition authoring and high-capacity storage, along with features like image-to-disc recording and archiving.
“Sonic’s software has helped establish and grow the market for CD and DVD creation and has made them the clear leader in their field,” said Andy Parsons, senior vice president, Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. With the market presence of HD DVD (promoted by Toshiba, NEC, Sanyo, Microsoft and Intel) similar to the Blu-ray Disc, the ongoing competition in digital media storage solutions intensifies further. “Both the BD and HD DVDs have their separate and unique features and cater to different target users. However, the BD software is more interactive,” says Mazin.
But for now, with some manufacturing issues yet to be resolved in Australia, the consumers might have to wait to choose the US$700 priced Blu-ray disc drive at the local Harvey Norman.
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