TDK Ships 25 GB Blu-Ray Disc

TDK, in what can be taken as a company trying to get first mover advantage, began shipping recordable and rewritable Blu-ray disc media. Pricing is set at $19.95 for a recordable 25 GB BD-R and $24.99 for a rewritable 25 GB BD-RE. Later this year they plan to ship 50 GB discs ($47.99 for the BD-R, $59.99 for the BD-RE). These prices are quite standard as this is a first generation product and those tend to be expensive and slow as shown by the 2x (72Mbps) recording speed. There is a format war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD over which will be the next generation optical disc. One has to think of it exactly like the VHS versus Betamax war of the 1980s. Only time will tell which format will go the Betamax way.