I-O DATA Device Inc. announced on Friday the BRD-M2 series of Blu-ray Disc writing and reading drives for PC, for both Japan and the U.S.

The upcoming drives from the BRD-M2 series are equipped with Panasonic SW-5582 Blu-ray RW drive. Blu-ray Disc can store 50 gigabytes of data equivalent to 4-hour high definition 1080i video file recorded by an HD video camcorder.

Also it is an ideal solution for backup of large data in PC. Included in the package is very user-friendly software for high definition video editing, recording, disc burning and playing.

Supported media includes:
Writing BD-R, BD-RE (single/dual layer)
DVD+R (single/dual layer), DVD-R (single/dual layer), DVD+RW, DVD-RW
DVD-RAM, CD-R, CD-RW
Reading BD-ROM, DVD-ROM, and CD-ROM

The BRD-M2 series of drives will come in two models. The BRD-AM2B will sell for $899 and the BRD-UM2 will sell $999. They will both be available in early June in Japan and the U.S.