Despite the ramp of Blu-ray drives, DVD burners will continue to be the leading volume product until 2012, a recent IDC study indicates. Overall PC market growth, driven by portable PCs, will give the worldwide CD/DVD market a moderately positive outlook in 2008 and lead to increased demand for slim drives. However, as the PC market's adoption of DVD burners becomes saturated and increasingly commoditized, Blu-ray adoption will accelerate in 2009 and Blu-ray drives will become the majority of the total market value in 2012.

"DVD burners will remain the bread-and-butter business for ODD vendors," said Wolfgang Schlichting, research director, Removable Storage at IDC. "Despite Blu-ray's win over HD-DVD in the format war, Blu-ray drive adoption will be limited in 2008 because of their high price and only moderate consumer interest."

Slow Blu-ray acceptance has also been reported by several analyst groups lately. Stand-alone Blu-ray player unit sales dropped 40% from January to February in the US, and saw only a 2% increase from February to March, according to NPD's Retail Tracking Service.

Blu-ray disc (BD) won the format war over HD DVD, but similar to DVD and DVD burners, Blu-ray will need a three- to five-year ramp to reach mass-market volumes. New, more affordable BD-ROM drives will lead the way for the BD format's adoption.

But until theat time, DVD burners continue their race to become a commodity market. Aggressive volume manufacturers will continue to drive down the price, pushing technology leaders out of the mainstream optical disc drive (ODD) market.

More than 100 million Blu-ray drives will ship worldwide in 2011, IDC forecasts.