Buffalo Japan announced the launch of an external optical drive that can play both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs as well as other older formats. The external version of the multi format reader drive from Buffalo is connectible to a host computer system via a high speed USB version 2.0 port and the unit is able to burn BD-RE and BD-R discs as well.

The new drive format is simply called Super Multi Blue and currently the only compliant drive that is widely available on the market is a read only one so no movie burning yet. Both Buffalo and I-O Data announced a line of optical drives supporting the Super Multi Blue format and currently each company offers read only models with price tags approaching the one found on high capacity internal Serial ATA hard disk drives. The internal version of the optical Super Multi Blue drives are based on a Serial ATA interface that is needed in order to support the high data transferring speeds typical for such a drive while the external version is based on the USB version 2.0 standard and it is only slightly more expensive.

According to the news site tech.co.uk, both computer manufacturing companies will start selling write enabled drives at the end of September. Blu-ray disk will be burned at a 2x speed for the rewritable discs while the write once versions will go higher at 4x maximum supported speed. All drives will be able to both read and write normal CDs and DVDs, while their HD DVD capabilities will be limited to playback only.

Pricing varies a lot for those drives, starting with the $400 for the internal unit already available for sale and terminating at well over $1000 for a write enabled drive. Availability is currently restricted to some stores in Japan but it is hoped that by the end of September those drives will find their way to the U.S. and Europe.