Sony Optiarc Unveils Next Gen BDR Drives

Sony has announced that it has a new line of next generation Blu-ray rewritable drives. The new BDR drives include the BD-5300S and the BWU-500s and they come in both retail packaging and as OEM drives only for those building up new machines and wanting to save a bit of money.

The drives all support writing to Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, and other features. They can write to BD-R discs at up to 12X and write to dual layer BD-R media at up to 8X speed making for a fully recorded 25GB disc in about 10 minutes. The 12X record speed is done on 6X media according to Sony Optiarc.

The BWU-500S is the retail model and comes with CyberLink Media Suite 8 software and a blank 25GB disc. The other drive is the OEM version with only the drive. Both are internal 5.25" optical drives that connect to a computer using SATA. Pricing is unannounced, but both will be available this month online and in retail locations.