[mduell]

Taiwanese firm AOpen has plans to introduce its first line of internal and external PC-based Blu-ray optical drives ... by the end of November.

Apple has generally been an early adopter of new tech (some examples that quickly come to mind are USB, Firewire, and 802.11b/g), but they've also lagged when it comes to optical formats (slow to support DVD+R(W) and dual layer).

But of course, it will cost you a pretty penny:

“When they are first launched, Blu-ray drives will be sold at a premium,” confirmed Mike Chiang, senior director, AOpen. “This is no different from when dual-layer DVD writers and DVD/CD-RW combo drives first made their way on to the market. Those drives too were sold at premiums when they were first launched. Now however, we sell more dual-layer DVD writers than standard combo drives, which was our previous big seller.”

(Source)

Do you think the much-rumored October 19th event will bring PowerMacs with Blu-ray drives (shipping "Real Soon Now", of course)?

[Krypton]

Unless the next G5 has dual optical drives (which it won't) this won't be happening; having a Blueray drive and no standard DVD writer will be a big no-no.

[TailsToo]

Nope, not happening until some time in 2006 at the soonest. There isn't even any media out yet. (wasn't it one of these sources that confirmed a wide-screen iBook last year?)

[mduell]

Originally Posted by TailsToo

Nope, not happening until some time in 2006 at the soonest. There isn't even any media out yet. (wasn't it one of these sources that confirmed a wide-screen iBook last year?)

Dell has announced that they'll be offering Blu-ray drives in the first half (or was it the first quarter?) of 2006. I don't think this claim from AOpen is unreasonable.

[Eriamjh]

I doubt we will see Blu-ray drives in the next round of G5s.

[Leonard]

I agree with Krypton, unless you have dual optical writing drives, you can't have Blu-ray drives because as I understand it Blu-ray drives can't write normal DVD-R/RWs (although they can read them). So the most compatible drive to have is a normal DVD-R/RW & DVD+R/RW drive as they write to media that are compatible with existing red laser DVD players and Blu-ray.

[TailsToo]

Originally Posted by mduell

Dell has announced that they'll be offering Blu-ray drives in the first half (or was it the first quarter?) of 2006. I don't think this claim from AOpen is unreasonable.

when was the last time Apple was on the cutting edge of optical drives?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by TailsToo

when was the last time Apple was on the cutting edge of optical drives?

They were pretty early into the game with DVD-RAM and DVD-R.
After that they kinda got stuck supporting the "wrong" standard.

[TailsToo]

No G5 with Blu-Ray...

[hmurchison2001]

Blu Ray sucks. Good job Apple. Stick with HD DVD

[newtech]

let's see a combo blu-ray DVD+/-R DL drive would be an......Ultradive....Uberdrive? what color book would that standard be? ( is blue book taken? )