DECEMBER 27, 2005 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - Pioneer Corp. plans to unveil its first Blu-ray Disc (BD) format optical disc drive for PCs at the upcoming International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the company said today. The drive will go on sale in Japan at the end of January, provided that two licensing issues are resolved, and is scheduled to be available in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2006.

The BDR-101A drive is compatible with noncartridge, single-layer recordable BD-R and rewritable BD-RW discs, and single and dual-layer read-only BD-ROM discs, the company said. It is also compatible with a wide range of DVD-based media and can write DVD-R and DVD-RW discs, Pioneer said.

The company plans to initially offer the product direct to Japanese PC makers for inclusion in their desktop computers and systems and will later expand sales to other countries, said Akira Muneto, a spokesman for Pioneer in Tokyo. PCs on the market boasting Blu-ray Disc support could appear in the first half of 2006, he said.

The drive will have an ATAPI interface that delivers a data transfer rate of 33MB/sec., Muneto said. It is a standard "half-height" size, measures 14.8mm wide by 42mm high by 198mm deep and weighs 1.1 kilograms.

The company did not specify pricing for the drive or plans to sell it direct to consumers.

Pioneer is the first optical disc drive maker to announce a shipping date for such a product, although the company's January schedule may be derailed by a delay in the licensing of the content management system or the Blu-ray Disc logo, it said.

The inability of the companies behind the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) content management system to complete their work has already caused Toshiba Corp. to put launch plans for its HD-DVD player on hold. The AACS group is made up of a number of companies from the electronics and content industries. The group's founders include IBM, Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (Panasonic), Sony Corp., Toshiba Corp., The Walt Disney Co. and Warner Brothers.

The group has declined several requests for an interview or comments about when the first version of its format will be completed.

The CES runs in Las Vegas from Jan. 5 to Jan. 8.