Taiwanese firm AOpen has plans to introduce its first line of internal and external PC-based Blu-ray optical drives to the Middle East by the end of November.
Compared to present dual-layer DVD writers, which can write up to 8.4GB of data to compatible media, Blu-ray drives should be able to write up to 50GB of data.
However, like all things new in the world of PCs, the prices of such drives are expected to be high when the models are first introduced onto the market.
"When they are first launched, Blu-ray drives will be sold at a premium," confirmed Mike Chiang, senior director, AOpen. "This is no different from when dual-layer DVD writers and DVD/CD-RW combo drives first made their way on to the market. Those drives too were sold at premiums when they were first launched. Now however, we sell more dual-layer DVD writers than standard combo drives, which was our previous big seller."