Sony Europe has announced the launch of its first Blu-ray Disc drive, the BWU-100A. Capable or reading and writing to single and dual layer BD media, the BWU-100A can be used to burn up to 50 GB of data or 4 hours of HD video.
Sony Europe's IT Peripherals division today announced the launch of its first Blu-ray Disc (BD) drive retail kit for PCs. The Sony BWU-100A drive reads and records single and dual layer Blu-ray Disc Recordable (BD-R) and Rewritable (BD-RE) media, providing up to 50GB capacity per disc for recording personal High Definition media content as well as for general data storage, back-up and archiving. With a free software upgrade and a suitably-specified playback environment, the BWU-100A is also capable of playing back commercial Blu-ray movies. Backward read and write compatibility with all major DVD and CD formats make the BWU-100A a true multi-format burner and the ideal upgrade option for any computer - including single-bay barebone or media centre PCs. The stylish Sony BWU-100A drive comes bundled with the CyberLink BD Solution software suite making it a complete out-of-the-box solution.
Contrary to CNET's claims, the BWU-100A will be able to play back commercial Blu-ray movies. Of course, you'll still need HDCP compliant hardware if you plan to view your movies at higher resolutions. If you'd like to read more, Sony's entire press release can be found here.
