CDRLabs.com

Yep.. the BDR-101A is expected to ship in January:

http://www.pioneer.co.jp/press/release159.html



More specs can be found here:

http://www.pioneer.co.jp/press/release516-j.html

Take note that like the leaked specs from a few months ago, these show that the BDR-101A does not support CD's at all.

So it records at 2X, how long then will it take in minutes to record a full 25GB disc?

In other terms, my NEC 3520A takes 6 min for ~4GB or ~36 min for 25GB, obviously 6 platters, not one.

Hermit

Well, if you read the front page, it tells you it has a max recording time of 2x @ 72Mb per second (hereby refered to as 9MBps, as using Mb for transfer rates is stupid).

If the drive can achieve 9MBps on a 25GB disk (25,000MB), then it would take 46.5 minutes to fully burn one to the brim (25000/9=2777.7777 | 2777.7777/60 = 46.5).

wow pioneer is just kicking the competition in the balls

I don't expect the drives to be that expensive, but the media will be. All the technology for building the drives and media is already there and at high volume.

Take note that the drive supports single layer BD-R/RE only right now. No mention of dual layer (50GB) discs.

A firmware update perhaps?

As long as it only does single layer and the fact that they probably are going to add all the Draconian DRM they can probably be good to wait and see how this all shakes out, plus price

I still can't get a price out of them but Pioneer America says the BDR-101A should be available in the 1Q of 2006... which will probably be February or March.

yum!

I wonder if holographic media has the opportunity to pre-empt this HD-DVD/BD war.