Two of the leaders in computer components manufacturing - Asustek Computer and BenQ - released the companies' first Blu-ray disk drives during Computex trade show, which takes place in Taipei, Taiwan, informs X-bit Labs.


As Asustek didn't reveal the name of its upcoming product, we might understand that the optical drive still has a long road ahead until it will be finished.

BenQ, for a change, released the manufacturer's internal (BW1000) and USB 2.0/FireWire external (EW100G) drives, which can burn every media available on the market, from common CDs to single- or dual-layer DVDs, and also single- or dual-layer Blu-ray discs.

Apparently, Asustek showed the way its new 5.25" Blu-ray disk drive works, and also gave interesting details about this new development. As a result, the disk drive can record and rewrite single-layer and dual-layer Blu-ray R/RW at 2x speed, single-layer or dual-layer DVD�R/RW, as well as CD types of media, a report on PC Watch web-site claims.

As you all know, only two big manufacturers - Pioneer and Panasonic - are able to deliver the Blu-ray disc recorders for PCs, as BenQ and Asustek did not mention the period in which they will launch the new products on the retail market.

Last December, Pioneer launched BD1.5, which was said to be the first Blu-Ray disk drive for PCs. But the first unit of this kind was presented by Sony in March 2003, and then launched on the Japan market in April, the same year. The new BD1.5 disk drive will be available on the market starting January 2006.

Single-layer Blu-Ray Discs have 25 GB of storage capacity for holding video and other data, while current DVD discs have 8.5 GB of storage at most. Blu-Ray can hold up to 27 GB on a single layer disc and supports many additional features like advanced copy protection mechanisms, but they are more expensive to produce than the HD-DVD. The latter can hold up to 15 GB on a single layer disc.