If you're strapped for cash following Christmas, Sony has unveiled a sub-$200 (£100/€135) internal BD-Rom drive which could help you recover from the festive season by staying in and watching Blu-ray movies on your PC.

Sony's sub-£200 Blu-ray drive

The BDU-X10S drive has a 2x BD-Rom read speed, together with an 8x and 24x DVD and CD read speed, respectively. It boasts a 5.25in form factor drive with a SATA interface and supports all manner of formats, including BD-Rom, BDAV, DVD-Rom, and DVD-Video.

Sony's also bundling the drive with CyberLink PowerDVD BD Edition software to support playback of recorded Blu-ray discs in MPEG-2, H.264, and AVCHD formats.

The drive is expected to ship this month in the US, but a European price or release date has not yet been given.

Internal Blu-ray drives are starting to drop in price, but few are available this low. However, rival manufacturer Philips has recently released its Lite-On DH-4O1S Blu-ray drive for around £125, which is similar to Sony's offering but has a faster 4x BD-Rom read speed.

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