Visitors at IFA 2005 have the chance to have an hands-on experience with the latest Blu-ray Disc products from over a dozen manufacturers at our Blu-ray Disc Association booth, located in the HDTV theme hall 26B, booth 201.

Among the companies to showcase their latest Blu-ray Disc products in our booth in hall 26B are CyberLink, DTS, Hitachi, HP, Nero, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Sonic, Sony, TDK and Verbatim.

However, most of the hardware showcased there was experimental models, which means that their final specifications may be different when they will reach the market, next year.

Sony exhibited a desktop CD/DVD/Blu-Ray disk player which supports various Java-based features allowing user to control menus, network services and games. Play back of a High Density MPEG-2 video (40Mbps) was also showcased.

For the PC market, Panasonic showcased a half-heigh Blu-Ray/DVD Multi drive prototype, as well as a version for notebooks (slim type) with a slot-in tray.

Pioneer demonstrated the highly anticipated BDR-101 drive. The half-height device will support recording of recordable/rewritable Blu-Ray discs (BD-R/RE) at 2x (72 Mbps), recording of DVD-R/+R at 8x and also writing of DVD-RW/+RW at 4x. In the reading part, the multi-format device will read BD-ROM/R/RW at 2x, and DVD-ROM at 12x. The drive will communicate with the PC through an IDE interface. Note that the Pioneer BDR-101 and the BDR-101A are different models, offering different functionalities. More information on this will be available soon.