TechRockstar » Optical Drives

Buffalo intros USB 3.0 Blu-ray burner

Sean — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:35:16 +0000

Buffalo has put out a fast new external Blu-ray burner that connects to PCs via a USB 3.0 interface. Rated at 12x speed, the BR-X1216U3 (page translated) is listed to be able to fill up a 25GB disc in 11 minutes, while also being able to write to single layer and dual layer DVD discs. All good and well, but there’s a few niggles: the fastest speeds can be had if your PC has a 5Gbps USB 3.0 port. Of course, it’s backwards-compatible to regular USB 2.0, but it limits the burning speeds to 7x. Also, it’s set to ship in Japan (for the equivalent of $450) by the end of the year, with no word on an international release.

AMEX Digital outs Blu-ray drive for the Mac mini

Sean — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:12:21 +0000

Hong Kong-based AMEX Digital has recently announced a Mac mini Blue-ray Drive Upgrade Kit for adding Blu-ray to Apple’s newest Mac mini (obviously). Capable of 4x BD read speeds and up to 8x speed DVD burning, the slot-loading drive comes with a SATA interface, the Blu-ray upgrade kit should work with Roxio’s Toast 9, Adobe’s Premiere Pro CS3 or VLC player for handling BD and DVD movies on a Mac (which is recommended since you can’t play BD movies on a MAc just yet). The BD upgrade kit is available in the US for $199.

OWC ships multi-interface BD-burner

Sean — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:04:08 +0000

Other World Computing has announced the release of the Mercury Pro BDR-205 External, an external BD/DVD/CD-burner that comes with four different connection types: USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and eSATA. Listed to burn onto Blu-ray discs at up to 12x, DVDs at 16x, and CDs at up to 40x speeds, the Mercury Pro also supports burning onto dual-layer BD-R discs for recording up to 50GBs of data. It’s available now for $350, with a package that includes the necessary cables and a pair of recordable 25GB single-layer BD-R discs.

Pioneer announces world’s first 12x BD burner

Sean — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:37:31 +0000

Pioneer has just announced that they’ve come up with what’s currently the world’s fastest Blu-ray disc burner, the 12x BDR-205. It’s an internal drive that connects via the SATA interface, and takes a step up the evolutionary tech ladder by going past the previous 8x cap for BD burners. It features Pioneer’s Low Vibration Mechanism Design for noise and vibration reduction, and can also burn onto recordable DVDs at 16x and CDs at 40x speeds. The 12x recording speeds is supported on both 25GB BD-R and 50GB BD-R DL discs.

It’ll sell for $249 when it comes out early next year.

Pioneer announces slim external DVD burner

Sean — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 05:26:50 +0000

Pioneer has just announced a new ultra-slim external DVD burner that plugs in via a USB port and burns single layer DVDs at 8x speed and dual-layer discs at 6x. Calling the DVR-XD09 “ultra-slim” is pretty accurate, since the entire drive is hardly larger than a regular CD jewel case. Weighing half a pound, the drive is also capable of burning dual-layer RW discs and CD-RW discs at a 24x clip.

The DVR-XD09 will be out by August for $80.

Asus introduces external slim BD-Combo drive

Sean — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:45:22 +0000

Asus’ new drive is a very slim external BD burner that stands vertically to save on space, and draws power from the USB connection to spare users from having to plug in an extra power cable.

The SBC-04B1S-U is a pretty stylish device, with a gloss black finish and a blue LED light that’s controlled by a “Light-Blu Tuner” (that’s a fancy name for something that simply adjusts the brightness of the external light). The drive is capable of reading 4.8x BD-ROMs and writing to DVDR and CD-R formats.

There’s nothing much else to fit into this slim drive, but Asus adds a Turbe Engine for faster connection speeds, HD upscaling capabilities, and Disc Encryption for adding a password onto discs. It ships with a copy of CyberLink’s software for creating discs.

Asus reworks the external DVD drive

Jullienne — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:28:15 +0000

Asus has taken the DVD drive, trimmed it down, given it a fresh coat of paint, and named it the External Slim SDRW-08D1S-U. The slim box has a vertical, stand-up form factor, which can save you a bit of desktop real estate. Available in black or white, this very glossy model doesn’t need a power adapter so you don’t have to deal with a bulky cable either.

Being an external, slim drive, it reads and writes at a maximum 8x speed. It does have a turbo engine however, which optimizes the performance between the drive and the USB cable for speedy disc reading and writing. Cyberlink burning software comes in the box too.

Asus

LaCie’s d2 Blu-ray drive brings double the fun

Jullienne — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:56:31 +0000

LaCie just announced the very fast d2 Blu-ray drive that burns discs up to 8x speed. This release actually doubles the speed of the company’s previous Blu-ray drive model. It can fit around 50GB of data (or 4 hours of high definition video) on a single Blu-ray disc – that’s 10 times as much data as you can burn on a DVD. It also burns at the same speed on both single and dual-layer discs.

The d2 Blu-ray drive supports MPEG,2, AVC and VC-1 codexes for Blu-ray content, as well as a host of Blu-ray, DVD and CD formats such as BD-R, BD-RE, BD-ROM, BD-ROM AACS, DVD±R, and CD-R. It’s bundled with Easy Media Creator 10 and Toast 9 Titanium software for backing up files and mastering and editing video and audio onto Blu-ray, DVD and CD discs. For Blu-ray aficionados willing to make the investment, this drive is available at the LaCie site and other online retailers for $449.99.

LaCie

LaCie’s Hard Disk MAX packs RAID features and 2TB storage; d2 DVD drive burns at 22x speed

Jullienne — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:00:00 +0000

LaCie has rolled out its Hard Disk MAX high capacity storage system, which comes with a whopping 2TB storage capacity and RAID features. The sleek black box by industrial designer Neil Poulton contains 2 large-capacity drives that can be configured to either RAID 0 (for high capacity) or RAID 1 (for high security). RAID 0 will stripe data across both of the disks for fast data retrieval, while RAID 1 will mirror data exactly on both disks to assure data reliability. A switch at the back of the box lets you do that in a jiffy, while a blue LED strip under it will flash red to warn you of problems.

This $269.99 storage system is packaged with Genie Backup Assistant for PC, Intego Backup Assistant for Mac, and Setup Assistant software. You’ll also get the LaCie One Year Unlimited Online Backup service, which provides unlimited online backup for one full year after installation. The drive connects to your computer via USB 2.0, but it also has an USB 2.0 expansion port up front for connecting with other devices.

The company has also come up with a new DVD+RW drive that burns rubber at 22x speed, making it the fastest drive in the market these days. Of course that little fact can change tomorrow, but the drive will still be pretty fast, all things considered. LightScribe technology will let you label discs like a pro, and it comes with both USB 2.0 and FireWire interfaces.

LaCie