Even though consumers do not rapidly adopt Blu-ray disc (BD) standalone players, makers of personal computers (PCs) plan to install BD drives into mainstream personal computers sometime in the second half of the year.

A news-story at DigiTimes web-site claims that “international PC vendors” plan to actively promote BD ROM drives in the second half of the year. The suppliers will not utilize Blu-ray disc burners since both drives and blank media are expensive. Presently Pioneer is the most positive toward BD drives, just like Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS). Lite-On IT also plans to start volume production of its relatively inexpensive Blu-ray disc drives in Q3 2008.

No actual system vendors were named in the news-story.

Blu-ray can store up to 25GB per single layer and up to 50GB on two layers. Traditional single-layer DVDs allow consumers to watch movies in 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL) resolution with Dolby Digital audio. The blue-laser discs provide consumers up to 1920x1080 resolution as well as advanced DTS or Dolby Digital audio along with some additional interactive features.

No actual manufacturers commented on the news-story.

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