Pioneer announced at IFA that it will be releasing a drive capable of reading both HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. The BDR-103 will utilize Ricoh’s smart blue laser diode that can recognize what type of disc has been inserted.

There have been a few of these drives that have been announced in the past. None of them have gelled, so here’s hoping that the BDR-103 actually makes it to market. If we start seeing more of these players, all that noise about format wars will be effectively nullified.

Pioneer planning BDR-103 HD DVD/Blu-ray combo drive [Engadget]