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Lite-On Predicts that Blu-Ray Combo Drives Will Go Mainstream in 2009, Burners in 2011

Paul Lilly — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:30:42 -0600

While Blu-ray continues to inch into living rooms amid lower prices, it won't be long until the high definition format becomes a mainstream feature in PCs, says Lite-On. The optical drive maker predicts 2009 as the year BD combo drives are a standard option in new PCs, with BD burners becoming commonplace by 2011.

By Lite-On's count, BD-ROM drives, BD combo drives, and BD burners are already showing signs of significant growth as the total number of global shipments has increased from 700,000 units in 2007 to 1.7 million in the first of 2008 alone.

But it all comes down to price, and OEMs will continue to charge between $100-$200 for BD combo drives in 2009, according to DigiTimes. Lite-On says the price of BD burners is expected to drop to between $50-$100 in 2011.

Buffalo Technology Announces First 8X External Blu-Ray Burners

Paul Lilly — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:10:02 -0500

Notebook vendors appear to cooling off towards the Blu-ray format, but can the high definition format attract more customers on the desktop? Buffalo seems to think so, who today has released not one, but two new 8x Blu-ray burners, one internal and one external.

The MediaStation 8x external Blu-ray drive holds promise for its obvious portability, and comes ready to connect via USB 2.0 or eSATA. The new drive measures 6.4 x 1.9 x 11 inches and weighs less than four pounds. In addition to 8x read and write speeds for BD-R media, Buffalo rates both the internal and external models at BD-RE 2x, DVD RAM 5x, DVD-R 16x, DVD+R 16x, DVD-RW 6x, DVD+RW 8x,CD-R 48x, and CD-RW 24x.

MSRP has been set to $400 for the external version and $350 for the internal model, both shipping with a suite of CyberLink software.

Rumor: Asus Plans on Expanding Eee PC with Hard Drive and Other Accessories

Paul Lilly — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:21:04 -0500

Asus' Eee PC is quickly becoming the iPod of the ultraportable market, and if the latest rumor turns out to be true, it will even have an assortment of accessories to go along with the low power notebook. According to German site Eee PC News, Asus will soon add an attractive looking external hard drive that connects via USB. But that's not all. The site also shows photos of an external optical drive and a 3G connection card called the T500, which also looks to fit into a USB port.

If true, add the peripherals to the growing list of Eee branded products. And if not, props to a damn convincing Photoshop job.

Pioneer Presses World's First 16-Layer Optical Disc

Paul Lilly — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:15:18 -0500

Following Hitachi's annoucement of plans to hit 5TB in a single hard drive by 2010, Pioneer follows suit by proclaiming a major advancement in the optical storage arena with an unprecedented 16-layer optical disc capable of storing 400GB. Presumably intended for distribution as Blu-ray media, Pioneer points out the new disc's 25GB per-layer capacity is the same as that of a Blu-ray disc (BD).

Cross-talk among multiple layers has been a stickling point in the optical industry, but Pioneer claims to have tackled the problem with a specialized disc structure designed to reduce interference from adjacent layers. And what about compatibility with existing Blu-ray players? Pioneer says that because the optical specifications of the lens are the same as those for existing BD discs, there shouldn't be any compatibility concerns between the new 16-layer discs and existing BD media.

Dampening the announcement, the 16-layer discs are read-only. That may change in time, but for the here and now, you'll still need to resort to standard discs or HDDs to store your epic music collection, downloaded videos, and other legally acquired data. Of course, finding someone who owns a Blu-ray drive capable of burning BD discs is more rare than spoting a MacBook victory at Maximum PC.

Razer Krait

Will Smith — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:26:41 -0600

We’ve traditionally slammed Razer mice because their oversize buttons are too easy to accidentally click and their low-profile ambidextrous design hurts our hands over long sessions. The new Krait ditches the obnoxious, impossible-to-click side buttons that we detested on the Copperhead model and streamlines the overall shape of the mouse, for a mousing experience that had us pleasantly surprised.

Click Read More for more.

Pioneer BD-R 101A Blu-ray Drive

Josh Norem — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 11:00:13 -0500

Blu-ray has finally arrived, and like a lot of first-gen products, it’s big on price, but not so big on performance. Sure, we used it in the Dream Machine last month, and we stand by that decision. The Dream Machine is all about the bleeding-edge—it boasted a beta BIOS, a beta chipset, and a Blu-ray drive too, damn it, despite despite the fact that Blu-ray movies and blank media are incredibly scarce.

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