Plextor, a leading supplier of optical disc drives, announced on Wednesday its first Blu-ray disc burner, which, according to the company, starts the family of Blu-ray drives. Plextor will be among the first to start shipments of Blu-ray burners.

“We are delighted to be launching our first Blu-ray device. Plextor has a long history in providing premium, high reliability optical drives and the new PX-B900A is no exception. This launch marks the start of a family of Plextor drives utilising Blu-ray technology,” said Rudy De Meirsman, sales & marketing manager of Plextor Europe

The Plextor PX-B900A drive can playback, read, record and re-write DVDs (8x speed for DVD+R/-R/+RW, 6x for DVD-RW, 4x for DVD+R/-R DL) as well as playback, read and record single-layer 25GB Blu-Ray discs (at up to 2x), it also can playback and burn CDs (24x CD-R and 16x CD-RW). The drive can accept both 12cm and 8cm discs (in the horizontal position) and has a 8MB buffer to ensure there is no data interruption. Plextor did not unveil which interface – Serial ATA or Parallel ATA – the new drive uses.

The Plextor PX-B900A will be available from September/October 2006 at Plextor’s network of dealers, the company indicated without giving price suggestions.

Earlier Panasonic and Pioneer have already released their LF-MB121JD and BRD-101A Blu-ray disc burners, which cost $900 and $1000, respectively.