Sony's blank-disc division will this month begin shipping rewriteable Blu-ray Discs in Europe. Recordable discs will appear in April, the company said. However, dual-layer versions will not surface until later in the year, it added.

The products due in March and April each provide 25GB of storage capacity and run at 2x speeds - a transfer rate of 72Mbps, Sony said. The two media are sprayed with a scratch-resistant, anti-static coating - handy, given how thin the data layer is on a BD. Sony said its own tests forecast a lifespan of 30 years for both types of disc.

Sony said the BD-R discs will cost less than €25 (£17/$30) and the BD-RE under €30 (£21/$36), though these are prices for the German market - the company warned prices in other European states may be different. ®