Sony reveals Blu-ray plans for Europe

 

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By Alun Williams

Posted on 7 Mar 2006 at 17:31

Sony is about to begin shipping its first Blu-ray Disc media in Europe.

The electronics giant - and driver of the Blu-ray optical disc format - has announced that single-layer BD-RE (Blu-ray Disc Rewritable) discs will be available from mid March. Single-layer write-once BD-R (Blu-ray Disc Recordable) media will be available from April, with Sony planning to launch dual layer discs later this year.

The single layer Blu-ray discs will hold up to 25GB of data, more than five times that of a normal DVD. This equates to approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes of high-definition video (at a bit rate of 24Mbps), or 10 hours and 30 minutes at 5Mbps.

For recording video or backing up data, Sony's media will support 2X speed (equating to a data transfer rate of 72 Mbit per second or 9MB/sec). It will also feature its AccuCORE technology (designated by a purple key logo, and already implemented for DVD discs) as a means of improving the accuracy of reading and writing data.

'We are committed to becoming a dominant player in the Blu-ray Disc media market in 2006,' said Fritz Handtke, Marketing and Operations Director of Sony Europe's Recording Media & Energy (RME) division. 'Given our technological expertise, our focus is on providing thrilling new High Definition entertainment experiences and the highest capacity PC data storage of any optical format.'

Last month, Sony priced the general release of Blu-ray DVDs in the US, and dated the release of 13 titles to coincide with the launch - on 23 May - of the first commercially available BD player by Samsung.

The latest announcement is the fruition of a standard that first emerged four years ago, in February 2002 - New optical disc standard steps out.

You can find the full details on its current incarnation at the Blu-ray Disc Association website.

For Sony, the format is all about future positioning for the storage and display of high definition multimedia content. The PlayStation 3, for example, which is a key element of Sony's home computing strategy, will feature Blu-ray drives.

'Sony is strongly positioned to offer customers an all-embracing, high-definition experience as a result of pioneering activity in the High Definition world,' said Handtke. 'Our range of integrated High Definition equipment, including camcorders, VAIO PCs, televisions and projectors, already covers everything from source to output.'