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: single layer
Infinity, the Japanese-based disc producer, has annouced that it will be bringing Blu-ray/DVD combo discs to the market, and that the boxset for the TV series Code Blue will be the first video to use the combo disc.
The disc will only be a single layer Blu-ray on one side and a dual layer DVD on the other, but the company says a full BD-50 dual layer on one side is possible.
Before its demise earlier this year, a good amount of HD DVD discs were combo discs as an effort to spur interest in the format and in HD in general.
The Infinity BD/DVD Hybrid discs will begin shipping in mid-February, and the 11-episode Blu-ray boxset will retail for the equivalent of $408 USD.
Result for: single layer
The manufacturer Pioneer has confirmed that its upcoming 16-layer Blu-ray discs will play back on most current standalone Blu-ray players including the Sony PlayStation 3.
The discs boast an impressive 400GB capacity and are finally headed into production by 2010 after being introduced earlier this year by Pioneer.
Current Blu-ray discs consist of either single layer 25GB discs or 50GB dual-layer discs.
The company also added that it will begin manufacturing 40-layer 1TB discs in 2013.
