Microboards Technology unveils Blu-ray duplicator towers

If you've got money just burning a hole in your pocket, or on the off chance you're starting an independent film company dealing solely in Blu-ray, Microboards Technology has a couple new duplicator towers aimed directly at you. While Primera's Bravo XR-Blu Disc Publisher can clone 50 discs in one sitting, you'll probably need to take a few weeks of vacation to let the single BDR-101A burner churn through all of those on its own. The CopyWriter Blu-Ray lineup features four and ten-bay flavors, handles both BD-R / BD-RE (Blu-ray's way of saying "rewriteable") and DVD±R / RW / DL, "one-touch" pirating duplication, PC passthrough via USB 2.0, automated "gold master" detection, and a two-line LCD for progress / error reporting. The ten-bay edition also rocks a built-in hard drive for 25GB of image archiving, and both units support "future upgrades" (dual-layer BD-R?) that will reportedly be installed via one of the many Blu-ray drives available. Currently, however, the towers are limited to the smallish 25GB Blu-ray discs, and the unnamed Pioneer Blu-ray burners top out at just 2x on the BD-R / BD-RE side. While toasting up to nine discs at once may come in handy every now and then, you might want to wait until the invidiual units become a bit less pricey before throwing down $8,995 for the little guy or $19,995 for the king-sized version.

[Via Wired]

[citykids @ Oct 4th 2006 11:03AM]

These bad boys are just itching for their firmware to be flashed and put to nefarious purposes!

[Tony Rayo @ Oct 4th 2006 1:21PM]

Cost of ownership seems awfully high but then again professional pressing isn't cheap either. If you are only going to put out a title or two a year I think having a professional studio makes more sense, otherwise I guess this might pay for itself in a short time-span. The good news since write/rewritable technology is coming out at the same time as pressed Blu-Ray discs, standalone players should have no problem playing these homemade discs (unlike the early years of DVD-/+R copying).

- Tony R.

[Amie Hoffner @ Oct 4th 2006 1:46PM]

The advantage of using Primera Technology's Bravo XR-Blu Disc Publisher over tower duplication systems is automation. While the Bravo XR-Blu Disc Publisher duplicates one disc at a time, the process is automated so users can start a job and walk away. Tower duplicators require a user to manually load and unload the drives.

In addition, Primera Technology's products are not designed for pirating. In fact, Primera Technology does not condone the use of its products for the purpose of illegal copyright infringement.

The Bravo XR-Blu Disc Publisher is designed for use by production studios, medical imaging facilities, government agencies, the military, banking institutions, insurance agencies, game developers and businesses who back up, archive and distribute mass quantities of original content data, video, audio, etc.

The Bravo XR-Blu allows these businesses and agencies the ability to store more content on each disc freeing up storage space on and off site.

Regards,
Amie Hoffner
PR Manager
Primera Technology

[roket21 @ Oct 4th 2006 4:00PM]

"In addition, Primera Technology's products are not designed for pirating. In fact, Primera Technology does not condone the use of its products for the purpose of illegal copyright infringement."

yeah, everyone says that.

[JMG @ May 29th 2007 9:58PM]

Amy, it is nice if you to show up and do some damage control. It is nice to see that Primera has resorted to flaming on a Microboards review page.

Microboards has many automated systems that unfortunately are much more reliable, faster, and more cost effective than any of the systems Primera offers.

Truly, what is the point of having an automated system that does one disc every 30 minutes? You would be better off running 10 discs in the same or less amount of time and then come back and do 10 more. In this case automation is ridiculous because it actually adds time to your job.

Also, for you to imply that Microboards products are meant for pirating is boarder line slander. At no time have I ever seen a Microboards product that would copy any copy protected material and in no way has Microboards ever implied that their equipment is designed for pirating.

I suggest Primera place somebody else in PR. You are no good.

[JMG @ May 29th 2007 10:02PM]

**Correction**

Last line was meant to read "I suggest that Primera place somebody else in charge of PR. You are no good."

[Dave @ Oct 5th 2006 8:19AM]

Cool tool :)