
Hot on the heels of all this
last minute, pre-CES HD DVD-related
action is the SD-H903A, which Toshiba touts as "the world's first dedicated PC-based
HD DVD burner" that writes "to all main optical discs." Aside from the obvious (albeit expected) hand-to-the-face to BD-Rs in that last claim, the burner does manage to write nicely to
HD DVD-R (single and dual-layer at a measly 1x),
DVD +/- R, DVD-RAM, DVD +/- RW, CD-R, and CD-RW. Additionally, it'll include an 8MB buffer, and if all goes well,
should play back all your precious HD DVD titles without
complication. While we've no idea how much coinage will be required to pick this (admittedly sluggish) drive up, sample shipments are scheduled to take off this month, and we should get a good look at just what it's capable of at next week's CES.