Samsung Blu-ray PC drives coming in Q4

Samsung officials told reporters it will ship a Blu-ray write-capable PC drive in the first half of next year, preceded by a combo drive in the fourth quarter of this year.

NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) -- At an invitees-only press event here this morning, representatives from Samsung told BetaNews they're looking to catch up with Hitachi in the Blu-ray PC drive market.

Samsung had been partnered with Toshiba in the production of HD DVD drives. Meanwhile, Hitachi and LG have been partnering in Blu-ray drives, with some very good success recently. With Blu-ray the surviving entity, it's now time for Samsung to follow the trend.

The company's combo drive will combine read-only Blu-ray functionality with read/write capabilities for DVDs and CDs, said Richard Aguilera, Samsung's national sales manager for optical storage. His colleague, John Suh, told reporters the write-capable Blu-ray drive will allow read/write functionality across all three media types.

During the presentation, Aguilera acknowledged that Blu-ray constitutes only a small percentage of the optical disk drive market today. People still listen to CDs in their car on their way to work, he added. However, Samsung expects the high-definition side of the market to pick up in 2009 and '10, as activity in the HDTV market continues to skyrocket.