Pioneer Has Ended Production of Computer Blu-ray Drives - Transfers PDDM Business to Shanxi Group

[T0@st]

Pioneer has quietly confirmed that it has ended production of internal and external Blu-ray optical disc drives (ODDs), for computers. Rumors about the cessation of manufacturing activities emerged earlier this month; with a small number of Japanese news outlets publishing reports. Days later, an official company statement turned up in a low-key manner—via the brand's Japanese web portal. As of late April, shares of the Pioneer Digital Design and Manufacturing (PDDM) subsidiary were transferred to Shanxi Lightchain Technology Industrial Development Co., Ltd. Pioneer's optical disc-related businesses is now owned by the giant (Chinese) Shanxi Group. Commenting on shifting market conditions, a Pioneer Japan representative stated: "while we are moving forward with selection and concentration, centered on our car electronics business, we have come to the decision that it is preferable to advance the optical disc business with a new partner, rather than remaining within our group."

The Pioneer IT Japan webstore is due to close on May 30; as disclosed in a mid-April bulletin. In addition, NotebookCheck highlighted the complete lack of optical drive stock for North American webshop customers. At the time of writing, Pioneer's official Amazon.com presence still offers a small selection of portable slimline models. A chunkier external premium option—the BDR-X13U-S BDXL Blu-ray recorder—was launched only six months ago, so the firm's sudden change of heart is quite surprising. What Hi-Fi? noted that Pioneer's AV/home cinema division has not released any new 4K Blu-ray player products since 2019. Three months ago, Sony shuttered its last optical media factory, in Japan—signalling an end of an era. The vast majority of consumers have turned their backs on physical formats; instead favoring digital/streaming channels. In a refreshing (early 2025) PR piece, Verbatim and I-O DATA expressed their (joint) commitment to producing high-quality optical discs.



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[mtosev]

I own a pioneer external Blu-ray drive. Sad to see that pioneer has ended its production of optical drives.

 

[Chaitanya]

End of an Era, sadly even have noticed LG drives not being easy to purchase in retail these days.

 

[dyonoctis]

To be fair, most computers can't even playback a 4K Blu-ray, because the instruction set to decode the DRM has either been canned by intel, or never interested AMD/Apple/ARM, so it's a bit hard to justify buying a blu ray player for a computer when all digital got a better IQ on that platform.

 

[Chaitanya]

To be fair, most computers can't even playback a 4K Blu-ray, because the instruction set to decode the DRM has either been canned by intel, or never interested AMD/Apple/ARM, so it's a bit hard to justify buying a blu ray player for a computer when all digital got a better IQ on that platform.

Internet streaming sucks 4k streaming quality is worse than 1080p DVDs, many PC users will be going to end up on high seas thanks to lack of option for blu ray drives. I personally do use optical drives to backup important files on archival grade media so will stock up on blu burners just in case they start vanishing from market(which seems to be the case here in India).

 

[Space Lynx]

main reason I paid extra for a disc drive ps5 recently was the 4k movies

 

[Erratic4^2]

To be fair, most computers can't even playback a 4K Blu-ray, because the instruction set to decode the DRM has either been canned by intel, or never interested AMD/Apple/ARM, so it's a bit hard to justify buying a blu ray player for a computer when all digital got a better IQ on that platform.

Except all digital has horrible artifacts, terrible crushing in the blacks, unreliable audio, etc. UHD disks are the only legal way to get video worth watching on a 4k OLED tv imo. And of course, these aren't just used for playback.

 

[lemonadesoda]

My first pioneer optical drive was an external SCSI requiring a PCI card and a thick D cable

 

[Rob_1]

The Internet contains solutions for all our problems, eventually:

Petabyte Disc: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06980-y

Blu Software: https://github.com/anomous/RedFox-Slysoft?tab=readme-ov-file

 

[dyonoctis]

Internet streaming sucks 4k streaming quality is worse than 1080p DVDs, many PC users will be going to end up on high seas thanks to lack of option for blu ray drives. I personally do use optical drives to backup important files on archival grade media so will stock up on blu burners just in case they start vanishing from market(which seems to be the case here in India).

You mean 1080p Blu-ray ? DVD tops out at 480p (576p in some areas). 1080 rips always looked blurrier on native 4k vs 4k streaming for me. But of course that depends on how robust the network infrastucture is.
You can also buy movies in 4K UHD Dolby vision on some platforms like Apple TV. IIRC, the file is around 25Gb. Things are more complicated for shows though.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

(yay! dark mode!)

200 TB disc storage is waiting for the drives capable to writing on your old CD/DVDs, but the same problem of re-write ability still looms.

Researchers have developed a Very Big Disc™ that can store up to 200 terabytes of data and may represent a return to optical media for long term storage

You can't keep a good disk down, it seems.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Readlight]

Or Blu ray player is dead.
Repair shop probably would try to replace motherboard, and 15 euro for just looking on it.
Newer played any movie with it.

 

[freeagent]

The last disc I burnt was a Windows 7 .iso in 2014 I think.. I have no need for optical media anymore.. but I have a few just in case haha.

My 128GB Samsung Bar is my install media..

I just buy movies that are on sale from Apple now.. looks ok

 

[Chaitanya]

You mean 1080p Blu-ray ? DVD tops out at 480p (576p in some areas). 1080 rips always looked blurrier on native 4k vs 4k streaming for me. But of course that depends on how robust the network infrastucture is.
You can also buy movies in 4K UHD Dolby vision on some platforms like Apple TV. IIRC, the file is around 25Gb. Things are more complicated for shows though.

I was talking about the high seas version where you could get 1080p movies on DVDs, they were quite popular here. Apple TV is quite wierd when it comes to pricing structure and quite unpopular.

 

[PixelTech]

Last year I bought a high end Sony Blu Ray player and started purchasing my favorite movies/shows. Just in case they get censored or made unavailable from any streaming site. So that I can show my kids the good stuff.

 

[Operandi]

I own a pioneer external Blu-ray drive. Sad to see that pioneer has ended its production of optical drives.

Pioneer barely exists at all, I'm surprised they were able to hold onto this part of their business as long as they have.

Except all digital has horrible artifacts, terrible crushing in the blacks, unreliable audio, etc. UHD disks are the only legal way to get video worth watching on a 4k OLED tv imo. And of course, these aren't just used for playback.

The best quality is going to be on the disc but even if its not, if you want to own anything your only option is to buy the disc. There is growing discontent with all the BS associated with streaming from the shit quality, ever rotating catalog and inability to own anything. Its been several years now since we've reach peak steaming and this sentiment is only going to increase. Streaming isn't going to end but I could see Blu-ray coming back the same way CD and vinyl has and being a fairly substantial market for anyone that doesn't want to watch whatever piece of shit low effort Netflix or Amazon production the algorithm is recommending.