Plextor releases two Blu-ray / HD DVD combo drives

Although we have hope that the format war is shuddering to a close, it's probably still wise to hedge your bets just a little -- and Plextor's got you covered with two new SATA Blu-ray / HD DVD combo drives. The new PX-B920SA writes to BD-R at 4x speeds, DVDs at 16x, and CD-Rs at 40x, and reads HD DVD, while the lower-end PX-B300SA drops the BD-R capabilities and just writes to DVD and CD. Plextor says both drives will be available at the end of the month, but sadly we don't have any pricing information.

[Via NordicHardware]

Read - PX-B920SA
Read - PX-B300SA

[JAmerican @ Feb 7th 2008 11:58PM]

The only way I can see Sony loosing support for the Bluray format to HD-DVD at this point is if they do what they did to the PS3, market it as something it is not and put a high price tag on it.

[NovaLand @ Feb 8th 2008 1:01AM]

HD-DVD is soooo 2007

[Ted @ Feb 8th 2008 12:00AM]

I wouldn't mind having a combo disc drive, it doesn't take up any extra space to have both formats and if HD-DVD loses you can happily buy up all those clearance HD-DVDs for peanuts.

[E71 @ Feb 8th 2008 9:52PM]

Yeah, but I wish they'd make that HD-DVD logo a little smaller and place it in the corner! I mean, after all, it's a BLU-RAY writer and its HD-DVD support is read-only.

[Jeremy K. @ Feb 8th 2008 12:01AM]

only $50! wait, what?

[why not the LS2/LS7? @ Feb 8th 2008 12:10AM]

They're certainly just rebadged LG GGC-H20L (combo drive) and CCW-H20L (BD writer/reader + combo drive).

They're good drives, and supposedly support 6X BD writing once the media is available.

Note to anyone with an NVidia NForce4 chipset, the SATA controller on your motherboard can't handle these drives. Later NVidia chipsets are find and Intels are fine.

[Dave @ Feb 8th 2008 12:31AM]

correct

[Kyran @ Feb 8th 2008 12:33AM]

It would seriously surprise me if Plextor of all drive makers just went and rebadged some other drive.

[why not the LS2/LS7? @ Feb 8th 2008 12:49AM]

Even in Plextor's peak years, they were just different firmwares for Sanyo mechanisms.

Sometimes firmware makes all the difference in the world.

Plextor is a shadow of their former self, they haven't made an exceptional drive in 2 years.

[fischju @ Feb 8th 2008 12:34AM]

If the cheapest is under $100, I'm buying it. The 360 HD DVD drive is best when hooking it up to a Windows PC, and that's $130... (But no free HD DVDs)

[Shawn @ Feb 8th 2008 1:04AM]

I can't understand why people want this format war to finish.. I seem to me like the format war has done nothing but bring prices down.

[Paul J. @ Feb 8th 2008 1:21AM]

Well, it's brought prices down of the losing format. Right now there are great deals on HD-DVD players and media because it's almost certain to lose, at the expense of having a solid unified format, which is keeping TONS of consumers far away because everyone is afraid of buying what becomes the next Betamax. Having a winning format is the only way to get broad consumer adoption and thus get prices down.

[jptech @ Feb 8th 2008 1:29AM]

oh how fricken sweet is that?

The undisputed king of burners comes out with the combo drives!

That's my next buy.

[jon @ Feb 8th 2008 1:34AM]

honestly if it is cheaper than the LG duel format read only drive aka bellow $300 then its worth it. if the writable and around the price of a BR write drive why not just throw in a HDVD drive as well, its not like you can loose here if it is a reasonable price.

[Eric @ Feb 8th 2008 10:55AM]

The LG combo drive, without BDR , can be had for around $200... Yup, I'm loving all these HD-DVDs on sale at $20

[why not the LS2/LS7? @ Feb 8th 2008 12:13PM]

The last BluRays I bought I paid $10 a piece for. They were the first 4 Potter movies.

[nycbob @ Mar 15th 2008 7:34PM]

"Duel" - Hey that's funny! Unfortunately, I think maybe you are just an English language ignoramus and have no idea what a pun is; and you intended "dual." Sad.

[Adrenaline @ Feb 8th 2008 1:50AM]

All I can this makes me think about is the arrival to of Blu-Ray to mac. If PCs are already doing BD-R drives... I mean, I guess they were waiting for a winner to the format war and it's only a matter of time. I am a PC user but I am going mac real soon. I just hope they don't put a blu-ray player in the new macs a week after I buy mine.

[Adrenaline @ Feb 8th 2008 1:51AM]

edit: remove "I can" from beginning of comment.

[peternj @ Feb 8th 2008 10:14AM]

You plan to move to a Mac? Don't if you like games, or a fast Internet. MacPro towers have limited GPU offerings and Safari or Firefox can crawl to a stop. Leopard at the moment still has major compatibility issues with hardware, data loss, internet. I'm writing this on a Dell because my MacBook Pro cannot connect. My HP Blackbird 002 is faster than my 8core 2.8 MacPro January 2008 edition is a slug by comparison. Adding more than 4GB of RAM is pointless though the OS up to 32GB can see it most if not all apps cannot see more than 3GB.
Worse still to add a SATA Blue Ray drive you need to pull out the fans and unscrew this and that to get access to a SATA port on the MB.
You don't get gaming because Jobs does not play. You do not get Blue Ray because Jobs does not use a computer for more than email. It's a one person company with a great design team. Leopard however is a major let down.
If you must buy one, then check out macrumors.com for their buying guide. It will tell you when to buy and when to wait. This saves you the pain of buying something obsolete within 30days.

[Ruben Ferreira @ Feb 8th 2008 2:29PM]

Im also thinking about switching from bleached white bread to whole wheat.

PS: No one gives a shit about you buying a Mac. No one should promote mistakes.

Plextor used to make the best dvd/cd drives/burners, mainly because they "suposedly" use all metal parts, such as gears. Who knows whether that still matters, or whether they even still do.

Competition in the dual-format (or in fact any drive with next-gen formats) is always welcome. I'm personally waiting for them to hit 129 or around there. This wont be, thats for sure.

[shawnmos @ Feb 8th 2008 2:29AM]

Dual format is the future. Get used to it folks.

[why not the LS2/LS7? @ Feb 8th 2008 2:44AM]

It only reads HD-DVDs, not writes them. And it only reads them at something like 3X max.

Dual format isn't the future because there will be few to no HD-DVD discs to read soon, and HD-DVD writing never took off at all.

[Rob @ Feb 8th 2008 8:28AM]

Dual format players will be released no matter what. Considering the number of movies sold, for both formats, there is a market for it. Regardless of who wins, people will want to be able to watch their movies on their PCs or HTPCs. However, it must clarified that dual formats will not come along to support both formats in a continuation of the format war, which hasn't done HD adoption any favors. We must have one HD format because it's easier for the average movie watcher to pick. For the average consumer the debate should be which movie to pick, and not which disc would play with their players they own. Also, studios can't afford to release two versions of every product they put out.

[why not the LS2/LS7? @ Feb 8th 2008 12:15PM]

You can't really watch HD movies on PCs or HTPCs, because you have to have HDCP in order to do it and most people don't.

And just because X number of combo drives will be sold doesn't make them "the future". I once bought a combo LaserDisc and DVD player because I had a lot of LaserDiscs and needed to be able to play them. That doesn't mean LD/DVD combo drives were the future.

[TheNomad @ Feb 8th 2008 3:42AM]

If it is priced anything like current Plextor drives then it will be 1.5x or double the price of the cheapest BD-R drive available at the moment.

[pc @ Feb 8th 2008 7:39AM]

meh I have a netflix account and keep both formats on an external hard drive no need for any expensive set top players

both formats will be dead in 10 years anyway
then the 4k or holgraphic discs will be out that the sheep can go crazy over

[Rob @ Feb 8th 2008 8:20AM]

Well, if you're willing to wait for the next thing in 10 years, then be my guest.

[rawd @ Feb 8th 2008 11:48AM]

Waste

[SH @ Feb 8th 2008 1:11PM]

I have some pricing info: EXPENSIVE.