Toshiba showcases uber-slim external HD DVD burner
By Darren Murph 
posted Sep 3rd 2007 9:36AM
posted Sep 3rd 2007 9:36AM
If a couple of new HD DVD players weren't enough for you, Toshiba is also launching an ultrathin, highly portable HD DVD burner for playing back high-definition flicks and writing massive amounts of data to single or dual-layer HD DVD-Rs whilst on the go. The simply titled HD DVD-Writer is reportedly the brother of the HD DVD Super-Multi, which only supports CD, DVD+/-RW, and HD DVD-ROM. Both units supposedly measure in at just 5.04- x 4.96- x 0.51-inches and weigh 5.82 ounces, and best of all, they're said to be available right now across the pond for £200 ($403).[Thanks, nfinity]
Is usb 2.0 bandwith good enough for HD Quality?
Yes, easily. HD-DVD video requires 36 Mbps bandwidth, whereas High-Speed USB 2.0's can practically provide 200 Mbps bandwidth (from a 480 Mbps theoretical maximum).
Just about, HD-DVD = 292Mbps, UB2 = 480Mbps.
Not sure about burning and stuff though.
Please ignore my previous comment, but take heed of the fact that many web sites consider bytes and bits to be pretty much interchangeable.
Wow, I thought USB 2.0 was a lot more limited than that. Still. It's not a good idea to put a solid speed cap on a protocol. It needs to be able to scale up to whatever is available.
Any mention of the speed? I saw some of the early HDDVD burners were just at 1X. In other words: Burn a 2 hour family movie will take you 2 hours. Although that might depend on the codec, now that I think of it, since it would support mpeg-2 and AVC... But in any case, I'd love to know if they're managing to get these things to go a bit faster
It's too small!
be nice though if it was small enough to fit in the old laptop
@Tony: You can get HD DVD read only drives on ebay that'll fit in most laptops.
Looks pretty sweet. I want!