It was May of last year when LaCie last updated its external d2 Blu-ray burner, so it's about time we saw that 4x burn rate double to an entirely more palatable 8x. Available now for consumers in the US, the latest d2 Blu-ray Drive ($449.99) can toast both single- and dual-layer BD-Rs at 8x, and it can connect to one's machine via FireWire or USB 2.0. In related news, the outfit has also introduced a LaCinema Black MAX over in Europe, which acts to serve up all sorts of digital media (photos, video clips, music, etc.) on one's HDTV. You can order it with 500GB / 1TB of inbuilt storage, and the integrated Ethernet jack / WiFi module enables it to pull media (up to 1080p) from other locations on your network. We've nary a clue on pricing / availability for this one, but we'll leave it to those in Europe to hunt it down and brag to us Yanks.
[ Source: Engadget ]
[ Tag: bd, blu-ray, blu-ray drive, Blu-rayDrive, external blu-ray, external blu-ray burner, ExternalBlu-ray, ExternalBlu-rayBurner, hd media streamer, HdMediaStreamer, lacie, LaCinema, LaCinema Black MAX, LacinemaBlackMax, media server, media streamer, MediaServer, MediaStreamer ]
LaCie intros 8x d2 Blu-ray burner, LaCinema Black MAX media streamer
LaCie LaCinema Rugged for the rough-and-tumble media enthusiast
LaCie launched the original LaCinema media drive back in January, and the company is now extending the line of media-playback drives with the LaCinema Rugged. Built in a tasteful black version of the same rubber-coated chassis as LaCie's standard rugged drives, the new unit comes in capacities up to 500GB and features 1080i HDMI output of a variety of codecs, including XviD. The LaCinema remote appears to be redesigned, and the menu system is apparently graphical and pretty, which is always nice. Not a bad way to do playback on the go, we suppose -- now if LaCie would just bring the ?219 ($357) drive to the States, we'd be all set.
[Via: Pocket-lint ] [Tag: divx, hard drive, HardDrive, lacie, lacinema, lacinema rugged, LacinemaRugged, rugged, xvid ]
Sanyo's laser could bring 12x Blu-ray burners and 100GB discs
While Sony and others compete with Blu-ray burners of a paltry 8x, Sanyo's looking ahead with a new laser that could enable write speeds of up to 12x. More impressively, the 450 milliwatt diode (twice that of current burners) could read and write through four 25GB layers. If you're not so good at math (it's okay, we had to break out the calculator) that means discs of up to 100GB burned in 10 minutes or less! But don't go running down to your local Blu-ray emporium looking for double-digit speed drives just yet; new standards will be needed for discs that big and drives that fast, which could mean a year or two before production begins. If speculation of Blu-ray's impending demise is to be believed, that may be cutting things a bit close.
[Via: Engadget ]
[Tag: bd-r, blu-ray burner, blu-ray writer, Blu-rayBurner, Blu-rayWriter, sanyo ]
Sony reveals healthy helping of new HDD / DVD recorders
We'll go ahead and nix some lingering excitement in the room: Sony's latest line of Hard Disk Drive DVD Recorders are aimed squarely at Europe. Now that we're clear on that, let us introduce to you the HX and HXD lines, which each posses four units that top out at 500GB. The RDR-HX680, HX780, HX980 and HX1080 all come ready to fetch analog broadcasts, while the RDR-HXD790, HXD890, HXD990 and HXD1090 also include a DVB-T digital tuner. The HDX crew can even be ordered with a CI slot, and the whole posse includes an HDMI port (1080p upscaling included), X-Pict Story, USB connectors, BRAVIA Sync and a dedicated SD HDD Handycam connection. Take a look in the read link for the full chart of specifications. [Warning: PDF read link]
Gallery: Sony reveals healthy helping of new HDD / DVD recorders
[Via: T3 ]
[Tag: BRAVIA, dvb, DVB-T, dvd recorder, DvdRecorder, europe, hdd recorder, HddRecorder, HX, HXD, RDR-HX1080, RDR-HX680, RDR-HX780, RDR-HX980, RDR-HXD1090, RDR-HXD1095, sony, X-Pict ]