Plextor Launches its First Blu-ray Drive!!!

New roads from Plextor:

http://www.plextor.be/

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News...x?NewsId=17402

Thanks for the heads up!

Personally i prefer Blu-Ray to HD-DVD, so i'm rather pleased to see Plextor choose the Blu-Ray camp (albeit they're probably not really 'fixed' to one camp and could offer either or even both).

Now the interesting bit would be if this is a labelled drive or their own creation ( http://www.blu-ray.com/drives/ ). I suspect it's labelled. They did that with the +R PX-504a too, when they entered the DVD market. Testing the waters and marking presence in the new market with their brand name.

Related to that: Anyone know if Sanyo does make Blu-Ray chipsets? I remember an press-release that stated at HD-DVD/DVD chipset. I'd like to see the Q-Check functions on a BR drive too.

Edit: A Panasonic SW-5582? At least the little data we have fit this http://www.slidirect.com/product43-105.html almost perfectly.

Edit2: Just found that Sanyo apparently is backing both.

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Last edited by hwp; 28-06-2006 at 22:09.

Considering that the only goal of Blu-Ray as well as HD-DVD is to enforce Digital Restrictions Management, considering how expensive the drives are and that just one BD/HDDVD player combo drive has been announced my Samsung for december 2006 or january 2007, I wonder how many people will buy BD/HDDVD hardware at all...

That's the 'megacorporation selling video content' point of view. Reducing this technology to only that is quite short-sighted. Speaking of video content: I know a number of people that are itching to slap down significant amounts of money for a 'HD digicam solution' for their beloved hobby. And they don't care for DRM, they WANT to share their stuff.

Come on! What was the price of the first CD-Writer again?

FYI: Samsung denied this a few hours ago. IMHO combo drives won't matter anyway since Blu-Ray will win the 'battle'. Anyone want to take bets?

Those that are interested in higher capacity optical storage. The real interest in these IMHO lies in data storage, not video. Regarding DVD my usage ratio for DATA:VIDEO is somewhere in the 9:1 area. Blu-Ray would cut down the number of media i have to handle significantly. As for video my current interest would rather be how many DVD content i can put on a BD (never mind HD resolution). I've got collections/compilations of my CDs on DVDs. I'd like to do the same with my DVDs on BD. HD-Video? Yeah, maybe in 5 years i'll think about it again, when the 'format-war' has settled...

Yeah like DVD+ was supposed to make DVD- disappear lol.

To be honest, i really dont know who will win, BUT my guess is HD-DVD cause microsoft is backing it up.

Yesterday I have seen BR discs in local store. One disc is 25€! This is crazy! Can buy a 50 spindle of Verbatim 16x +R for that money!

WE-DeusEx*2001: Like M$ has backed DVD+RW?

"The Plextor PX-B900A will be available from September/October 2006 at Plextor's network of dealers."

Vaporware. They are not launching anything. They will have an allocation of the first generation Panasonic drives with Plextor logo stamped on the plastic bezel, three to four months down the road, when Panasonic will be getting ready to manufacture the second generation of their drives.

No wonder they are rushing to announce this in June. In October, we'll be anticipating 4x BD-R drives.

Wasn't LGs 4x BD-drive scheduled for august or something?

According to this: http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News...x?NewsId=17196 is was announced for middle of June. Go figure ...

Like between 2nd and 29th? :P

To me it sounds more like "somewhen later this year"

Like Sony's first BD-Player, that was scheduled for May 23, then June, then August, and now october?

I still don't need any of this new optical storage technology ... man, even 16x quality DVD writing and blank DVD media quality still are suboptimal ... and I'm not regarding the DL disaster here. Regarding the hassle with DVD media compatibility, I can't even imagine the troubles lying ahead with BD or HDDVD media quality and data integrity ...

HD video content (for handycams) would be better stored on appropriate flash memory or exchangeable 2,5" HDD's IMO ...

As for data storage ... I'm quite happy with my external HDD's that offer better transfer rates, shorter access times etc. etc.

HD video on flash memory?? ahahahahahah
Anyway no one wants to keep there only copy of a HD-Dv file on a portable hard drive. It's more expensive then a Blu Ray disc (which are $17 at Tigredirect.com) and a whole lot easier to break (highly sensitive precise moveable parts don't like being moved that much). Blu Ray is a perfect backup solution for such high end content like this. Also my Dvd player (or eventually Blu Ray player) dosn't handle external hard drive playback to well. Convience is key.

Still just because you don't need anything dosn't mean other's don't. I will be buying a Blu Ray drive when the price comes down.

Also treat your discs better then they might actually last longer so you don't have to worry about DRM's. It's not the movie publishers fault your a lazy slob. Remember also to throw away your DRM infested Dvd's that you bought.

This is why I hope HD-DVD dies!

I don't want BluRay OR HD-DVD for watching movies - It just isn't worth it unless you have a 1080p TV or something.

The only reason I want it is for storage!

And in this regard, BluRay is better than HD-DVD in every respect.

However, already with DVD's, the quality and reliability is bad.
Many of my Verbatim DVDs have shown considerably worse degradation than even my crappy old Maxell blue-dye CDs! Admitedly they are not stored particularly well (Dark place, but warm in summer...), but the stuff I have backed up on 2 old and dying 200GB Maxtor MaxLine II HDs are still perfectly fine

If they can get BluRay to be reliable and stable in the long term, I will jump for it! I like the fact that they have toughened coatings, which the HD-DVD does not. Not sure how much it will help in the Real World, but every little helps I guess.

But frankly, if you could buy 40GB 2.5" SATA HDDs for like, £15, I'd use those instead of DVDs or BD/HD-DVD and just build a little SATA hotswap bay for them
They take up less space and are more reliable!

A pity those holographic wafers are no where to be seen... only 300GB Holodisk which costs 500x more than a 300GB 3.5" HD!!!!

Isn't that the same coating as on TDK ScratchProof DVD±R?

Just a guess: While the anti-scratch technology is probably basically the same, a coating interferes with the optical path of the laser. Since there are differencies where the dye layer is between BR and HDDVD and therefore differencies in the optical path, a coating for BR might require different optical requirements (for ex. refraction index) than a coating for HDDVD.

Sure ... why not ? Today's transfer rates are good enough for that and memory chip density allows for high capacity.

Who was talkin' about keeping the only copy on a portable HDD drive ?

It isn't more expensive from the $/GB perspective and the perspective of being able to rewrite as oftes as you like. And 2.5'' HDD's (or 1.8" respectively) have proven themselves reliable in virtually thousands of devices that are being operated under suboptimal conditions (Notebooks, portable MP3 players etc.).

Your opinion

We have car audio head units that support browsing any USB data storage medium by now ... who says that we won't have multi-purpose home devices in the future ?

Nobody will keep you from doing so ...


My discs are in pristine condition ... and you can stop the name-calling, btw

@psychoace. We put up with a lot of stuff here but name calling is where I draw the line.

meso sorry

Same kind of stuff, slightly newer formulation I think.

The TDK stuff is pretty neat - I wish the scratch-resistant coat on my glasses was as good
Pity about the quality of the TDK DVDR's 'tho... I never had much joy with them compared to TY or Verb.

I wonder if it is to do with the coating as hwp suggests?

The price of this new buner will be of $1000!!! OUCH!!!

http://www.hwupgrade.it/news/storage...ray_17893.html

Yes, but it's NEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWW