LaCie has announced the release of their latest Blu-ray burner, the updated d2 which can write to Blu-ray Disc at 8x.
The drive can also write “fully copy-protected, studio-grade movies” at 2x and single layer DVDs at 16x. Dual-layer discs can be burnt at 8x.
Electronista says, “The drive carries both FireWire 400 and USB interfaces and has a second FireWire port to daisy-chain the d2 with other peripherals and save expansion ports. Both Mac and Windows users get Roxio’s Toast Titanium 9 and Easy Media Creator 10 to author Blu-ray discs, though only Windows users get playback software to watch Blu-ray movies.”
The drive is already available and has a suggested price of $450 USD, a bit more expensive than other 8x Blu-ray burners available now.
Result for: 6x
EZQuest has launched its latest Mac-based product, the internal Phoenix Blu-ray Super Drive 6X Rewriter.
The drive can play and record to CD, DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray. The “device features a 4MB buffer for writing, and uses integrated buffer under-run protection. Files, folders, movies, or other content can be dragged and dropped directly from the Mac desktop to be written on the 50GB capacity discs,” says the product page.
To be able to watch commercial Blu-ray or HD DVD discs on Macs however, the company says you will have to use Windows through Boot Camp on your computer.
Write speed for BD-R and BD-RE discs is 6X, HD DVDs is 3X and standard DVDs are 16x.
The EZQuest Phoenix is currently available for both the Mac Pro and Power Mac for $480 USD while a bundled version (with Toast Titanium) is priced at $550 USD.
Result for: 6x
Plextor made a surprising announcement today when it introduced two dual-format HD optical drives, the B920SA and B300SA, both of which can read Blu-ray and HD DVD discs.
Although the HD DVD format is now obsolete, the new drives gives owners a chance to watch their HD DVD titles on a computer while also allowing them to make way for Blu-ray.
The B920SA can burn 25GB BD discs at up to 4X speed and can write CDs and DVDs at 16x. The B300SA cannot write Blu-ray discs but can read at a relatively fast 6X speed. Both drives connect through Serial ATA and will ship in March for $450 USD and $600 USD respectively. Each drive comes bundled with movie playback, burning, and editing software for Windows systems.
