Optiarc rolls out Blu-ray drive for "mid-range" laptops

Optiarc (the joint venture between Sony and NEC) has already pumped out quite a few Blu-ray drives for both desktops and laptops, and it's now let loose yet another model, with this one promising to make Blu-ray accessible to "mid-range" laptop models. That accessibility comes at the expense of Blu-ray burning, although the drive (dubbed the BC-5500A) will burn CDs or DVDs at speeds ranging from 8x to 16x depending on the format. If that's not too much of a compromise for you, you should be able to grab one around $335 right now -- or, more likely, wait for some laptop manufacturers to start offering 'em as a standard option.

[pigfister @ Oct 10th 2007 12:16PM]

wow this is great lets add sony drm to my pc!

[DickHardknocks @ Oct 10th 2007 12:17PM]

Despite the fact its obvious Blu Ray has won this generation's format war ... wake me when they have Blu-Ray burners for laptops under $1000.

[pigfister @ Oct 10th 2007 12:29PM]

well maybe not everyone agrees with you there!

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=9202

"One often overlooked statistic when comparing the two main high-definition optical formats is rentals. While Blu-ray Disc movies have consistently sold more units than HD DVD at retail, the popularity of the formats appear to be reversed in the rental market.

According to Netflix data gathered by Compete’s online traffic metrics, HD DVD is the preferred high-def format for customers of the largest online rental firm in the U.S. Netflix users that deliberately set a particular format as preferred chose HD DVD by a factor of 2.4:1 when compared to Blu-ray Disc favorers."

[pigfister @ Oct 10th 2007 1:33PM]

you talk complete fud, sony would be proud! btw dvd is the winner blu-ray and their drm BD+ will go the same way as minidisc.

blu-ray is anti consumer because of HDCP, AACS, BD+, the same as sony's ATRAC, ARccOS, SecuROM, XCP Rootkit, CLEFIA the rest of their propertarian anti consumer crap.

[pigfister @ Oct 10th 2007 1:38PM]

you talk complete fud, sony would be proud! btw dvd is the winner blu-ray and their drm BD+ will go the same way as minidisc.

blu-ray is anti consumer because of HDCP, AACS, BD+, the same as sony's ATRAC, ARccOS, SecuROM, XCP Rootkit, CLEFIA the rest of their propertarian anti consumer crap.

[DickHardknocks @ Oct 10th 2007 1:16PM]

You have to lok hard to dig up statistics contrary to THE FACT that BluRay is beating HDDVD.

First of all, as predicted, the PS3 allowed the market penetration of HDDVD to fufill itself with ease - placing a Blu Ray player in the homes of the millions who bought (and are buying PS3's.
The same thing happened when PS2 was released and the home DVD player still cost over $1000. PS2's, especially in Japan allowed DVD players to be purchased inexspensively.

HDDVD is a losing format because unlike Blu Ray, it doesn't boast the largest viable storage capacity. Furthermore, you actually HAVE to buy an HDDVD player and you cannot buy a secondary deviice and get one. Had Microsoft implanted HDDVD drives in the 360, they might have helped but, theyfailed to do so - which speaks volumes as to how they feel about the format THEY are backing.


Blu Ray is the more attractive format by default. No matter what you think about the format war, you cannot argue with the raw numbers.

[JJV @ Oct 10th 2007 12:31PM]

why didnt they call them selves sonnec or neccy??? better names

[theefman @ Oct 10th 2007 1:17PM]

DickHardknocks, how many times has sony and co declared the format war over? If its so obvious blu ray has won why isnt Transformers being released on br next week? Please go back to Phase Hydra HQ and report that HD DVD is alive and kicking!!

[xemumanic @ Oct 10th 2007 1:27PM]

Its very simple, Paramount and Dreamworks were paid off. This is fact, we all know it. The film was coming to both formats until that happened. Note its only for 18 months, even, (I believe) the CEO of Panasonic was saying pretty much the same thing one or two weeks ago. It was even in the New York Times. You can make whatever excuses you want about all this, but until the Paramount/Dreamworks buyout happened, HD-DVD was all but dead already, and this is only delaying the inevitable.

[BioDarren @ Oct 10th 2007 2:34PM]

Transformers is out on BR in the UK my friend! :-)

[Matthew @ Oct 10th 2007 2:09PM]

I agree with xemumanic. Blu-Ray may not become as popular as DVD because downloading movies will become more and more popular in the near future but as for a hard copy DVD replacement I think Blu-Ray will beat out HD-DVD for a few reasons.

1. PS3- Everyone who owns a PS3 will have a Blu-Ray player which means that there are already 4 million + out there.

2. Blu Ray holds more then HDDVD. 50GB vs 25GB

3. Blu Ray is already outselling HD-DVD 2:1.

The only thing HD-DVD has going for it really is its price point. However Blu ray prices are falling and when the peak down past the $200 price range they'll be selling a lot more.

[xemumanic @ Oct 11th 2007 12:19PM]

And hey, wasn't NEC the other big name that was tied to HD DVD along with Toshiba? Early on, when HD-DVD info was first coming out, it was always Toshiba + NEC. So what are they doing making Blu-Ray hardware with Sony? Very telling if you ask me.

[Silverfrog @ Oct 10th 2007 3:16PM]

Let's not forget that Blockbuster (larger than Netflix) sells Blu-Ray in 1,450 stores compared to the 250 stores it uses to test HD-DVD. I think that says a lot about where the format is going. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/business/18blockbuster.html

[Silverfrog @ Oct 10th 2007 3:19PM]

Oh, and before someone comes on and calls bullcrap, Netflix did 996 Million in revenue last year where Blockbuster did 5.4 Billion in revenue last year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_Inc.

[julian @ Oct 10th 2007 7:46PM]

lol another orginial blu-ray manufacture wow its nice sseing sony drives plextor drive lite on drive sony and philips drives god i love veriety

while toshiba is only original hd dvd manufacture lmao