Sonic Solutions is offering a Roxio Blu-ray technology preview kit that enabers computer manufacturers and software developers to test out recording and playback of Blu-ray content. The free software is available to anyone that signs up and allows both data and audio-video content to be recorded on Blu-ray discs.

Mark Ely, executive vice president of Strategy at Sonic Solutions, told TG Daily that the data recording portion of the software is pretty straight forward and didn't require too much development. "Just recording pure data isn't difficult because it's the same UDF format as previous technologies," Ely said.

Ely expects Blu-ray recorders and players to be adopted much faster than DVD technology. Consequently the prices for the devices should also drop much faster. "DVD recorders took about 5 to 6 years before they came down to the sub-$200 level, I think Blu-ray will drop to that price much faster," he said.