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Below is an excerpt from digitimes.com about the availability of the BWU 100A Blu Ray Disc Burner for the Taiwan market.

On November 16, Sony introduced its internal Blu-ray Disc (BD) burner model, the BWU-100A, to be sold in the Taiwan market at a recommended retail price of NT$33,000 (US$1,006). The product is immediately available for pre-ordering, and its launch is scheduled for the end of this month, according to Sony Taiwan.

The BWU-100A can record data on BD discs with capacities of up to 50GB (single-sided double-layer discs), Sony Taiwan indicated. In terms of content, this means up to fours of 1,080p HD (high-definition) video, ten DVD movies or 13,000 MP3 songs, Sony Taiwan noted. Sized at 13.3×4.1×17.8cm, the model weighs 1.59kg.

Sony’s device is the third BD burner model offered in the local market, following Pioneer BDR-101A and LG Electronics GBW-H10N that were launched last quarter. The initial quota of the BWU-100A for the Taiwan market only amounts to 500 units, according to Sony Taiwan.

Due to the short supply of Sony-developed BD pick-up heads, which are also used in Sony PlayStation 3, the BWU-100A is priced higher than other available BD-burner models, Sony Taiwan pointed out. Taking into consideration the high price and the limited availability of BD-R (write-once) and BD-RE (rewritable) discs, the first batch of 500 units should be enough for the local market at the beginning, Sony Taiwan explained.

Although the company makes BWU-100A on its own, it may later may release OEM orders to Taiwan producers, when BD burners will become more popular, Sony Taiwan pointed out.