Sony DADC announced today that the company is finally launching its Blu-ray Disc BD-ROM (video, games, data) production in the U.S., according to Hardware Zone.

Sony DADC in the U.S. currently has three Blu-ray replication lines functioning with a capacity of 25,000 single-layer 25GB Blu-ray Discs per day, for a total of 750,000 Blu-ray Discs per month. This capacity is expected to increase to nearly 5 million discs per month by October as additional lines are added to the facility. Of these additional lines, six will be capable of manufacturing 50GB dual layer Blu-ray Discs.

Earlier this month, the company stated that it will ship 25-GB BD media, which will retail for about $25 each disc. The 50-GB versions of the media (BD-R and BD-RE) will be dual-layer discs to be sold for $48 and $60, similar to pricing on TDK's or Panasonic's BD media.

"Sony DADC is thrilled to be the leading optical disc manufacturing facility in the U.S. and have a full Blu-ray BD-ROM line ready for production," said Dieter Daum, President, Sony Disc & Digital Solutions.

"Blu-ray is going to revolutionize the way consumers enjoy and interact with high definition entertainment content, and we are pleased to play a critical role in this important development."

Sony DADC has prepared also a printer and packaging line dedicated to Blu-ray BD-ROM and a Phase Transition Mastering (PTM) machine, which can be easily reconfigured to support both BD-ROM and DVD-ROM (video, games, data) on a particular system. Sony officials added that a second PTM machine will be shipped this summer, coming with an additional printer and three packaging lines which will be added by October.

Blu-ray Disc Authoring Services will be available in July 2006.

It seems that, later this year, Sony will also release the internal BWU-100A drive, which will be able to handle both 25-GB and 50-GB discs, burning a full 25 GB disc in about 30 minutes. Retail pricing for the BWU-100A drive will be available later this year.