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Buffalo reveals slimline external BDXL burner for $275, affiliated media still makes your wallet weep
BDXL is the optical storage medium du jour, but the options for those wanting its capacious quad-layer burning capabilities in a tasty to-go form factor are fairly limited. Previous drives have lacked a certain... aesthetic appeal, but now Buffalo has unveiled its BRXL-PC6U2-BK, a slim and shiny external model that'll handle all of your BDXL disc-creation needs. The drive can run off a single USB 2.0 plug, though writing at 4x speeds requires a second USB connection to give it the juice required to do the deed. Slated for a release by the end of March, otherwise known as next week, this hot little onyx number will set you back ¥22,100 (about $275). Just don't go blowing all your cash on the drive -- BR-R XL discs ain't cheap, y'know.
Aleratec slashes prices of Blu-ray recording wares
If you've been holding off on buying yourself a Blu-ray duplicator, bravo. Aleratec has just announced price drops of up to 65 percent on its 1:3 Copy Cruiser Blu LS LightScribe-enabled disc publisher and its 4x BD-R Blu-ray recording media. The former has seen a 25 percent dip down to $1,575, and for those unaware, it provides the ability to produce a trio of Blu-ray Discs at 6x each. The latter is potentially most riveting, with a 10-pack of "duplicator grade" BD-R media falling all the way down to $57.99 (MSRP). By our math, that's under six bucks a disc, and that's definitely hovering a lot closer to respectable than what we've seen in months past.
FastMac slips out three slimline USB Blu-ray drives, including a $99 reader
We'd heard of a FastMac USB external slimline Blu-ray reader poking around Macworld last month, but we never got anything official until today, when the company pinged us to let us know that the $99 APP-6907 DVD±RW / BD drive, the $299 APP-6963 1x BD-R drive and the $399 APP-6964 4x BD-R drive are now all available. All three drives support both Macs and PCs, although you'll need Windows to play BD movies. Not bad deals all around, but we're still not convinced we need a Blu-ray drive for our computers when we barely use the one in the living room. Read - APP-6907 Read - APP-6963 Read - APP-6964
Pioneer to launch Blu-ray recorders by year's end
Blu-ray recorders have been on the scene for a while now, but now that the format war's over, it looks like more companies are starting to commit to BD-R devices -- like Pioneer, which announced today that it'll have a Blu-ray recorder out in Japan by the end of the year. The company didn't say what model it would be or what price point it was aiming for, but the tech is being jointly developed with Sharp, so hopefully it's have a family resemblance to units like the 1TB AQUOS BD-HDW20 in everything but the $2,611 pricetag.
TDK: Ok, we're done with the 200GB recordable Blu-Ray
That was fast. It took 'em years to develop recordable DVDs, then another couple more for the dual layer variety, but now but a few weeks after TDK announced their hard workin' intentions to develop 8-layer 200GB recordable Blu-ray discs, they've got it bagged. Balls to the fact that we still don't have the players; the interesting thing about these discs, however, is that the data isn't stored on thin layers of dye, no no. Apparently when each layer of bismuth peroxide and germanium oxide is heated to 690K by laser, microscopic air bubbles form and create the bits we've come to know and obsess over. Oh sure, these discs are probably going to be horrendously expensive in the beginning, but isn't it nice to know we're already good to go on capacities large enough to archive years of home movies? [Warning: link is Japanese and requires subscription.][Via Newlaunches]
