$199 Blu-ray Drives for the PC

If the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray were decided on price point alone, HD DVD would have it in the bag. However, Blu-ray is narrowing the gap with the introduction of the Philips and Lite-On Digital Solutions DH-401S; an internal PC drive available at a suggested price of USD 199.

The drive serves only as a Blu-ray, DVD and CD player although a PC equipped with the DH could be routed to a TV via an HDMI cable.

“With the increasing availability of Blu-ray Disc movies and other video content, consumers now have an affordable way to view the brilliant picture quality Blu-ray technology offers right on their personal computers,” says Christine Hsing, a marketing manager at PLDS, said in a statement. “Beyond that, the BD-ROM can serve as a playback device to their HD TVs by connecting an HDMI cable from the PC to the TV. This would save consumers hundreds of dollars on the purchase of a standalone Blu-ray player solely for that purpose.”

The specs for the DH-401S are:

• BD-R/RE/ROM single- or dual-layer discs read at up to 4X speeds
• DVD±R or DVD-ROM single- or double-layer discs read at 12X
• DVD±RW single or double-layer discs read at 8X speeds
• DVD Single-layer or Double-layer media read at 4X maximum
• DVD ±R or DVD-ROM Single Layer read at 12X max
• DVD±R Double Layer and DVD±RW Single Layer read at 8X max
• CD-R/RW/ROM has a maximum read speed of 32X

The DH-401S comes bundled with Cyberlink PowerDVD software.

via Gearlog