Blu-ray Discs and Players Start Coming in Five Days

Blu-ray Disc (BD), one of two new HD video disc formats, will debut on June 20 when Sony releases eight titles plus a ninth on June 27 and seven more in July. Samsung's BD-P1000 Blu-ray disc player is scheduled to hit the market on June 25 as the first such player on the U.S. market. Sony will also release a BD-compatible Vaio PC. Pioneer has already released a computer drive that will read the BD discs, the BDR-101A.

Blu-ray discs hold up to 25GB/50GB of data.

Apple Computer supports the BD format but has not yet announced any products using it--stay tuned. More... [Bill Fox]