Pioneer has nabbed victory in being the first company to manufacture a 12x Blu-ray writer for single and dual-layer media. The current generation of Blu-ray burners holds a maximum write speed of 8x, making the new release quite a performance boost.
In addition to cutting burn times, Pioneer claims that the new BDR-205 burner has been designed with a low vibration mechanism that will improve writing accuracy over the current generation of burners.
The burner will also be able to read and write DVD media at 16x and CD media at 40x.
Pioneer has long been at the forefront of optical media research and design, introducing its Laserdisc products in 1980, the first DVD writer and home DVD recorder in the late 1990s, and the first DVD/CD burner and Blu-ray Disc burner earlier this century.
Pioneer"s latest creation comes on the heels of an NPD investigation into the market for Blu-ray players. In this investigation, NPD compared the types of consumers owning and buying Blu-ray Disc players in February 2008 with consumers in August 2009. Their findings showed a maturing market, which will finally penetrate the mainstream in 2010, after years on the sidelines.
The BDR-205 will go on sale this month. It"s retail cousin, the BDR-2205, is scheduled to ship in the first quarter of 2010 and is expected to have a recommended price of $US249.