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• CES 2007: Lacie announces $1150 Blu-ray burner

  Pre CES 2007 coverage - Las Vegas (NV) - Lacie will be hitting the Consumer Electronics Show with a bunch of new products. Perhaps most significantly an external Blu-ray writer, Firewire speakers as well as a biometric access hard drive. Get a glimpse of what Lacie will be showing. There is no question that Blu-ray has not yet lived up to the hype its supporters generated at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show one year ago. We expect the format to come out in force this year once again and try to reinvigorate the enthusiasm for the technology. Lacie is first to announce a new Blu-ray product, which the company claims will be the first external Windows/Mac Blu-ray burner available on a worldwide basis. Lacie d2 Blu-ray drive The d2 Blu-ray drive comes with dual USB/Firewire interfaces and supports 25 GB as well as 50 GB BD-Rs/Res and the preceding rewritable DVD and CD formats. There is not much change in terms of pricing from last year, which means that you will pay quite a bit for such devices. Lacie will charge $1150 for this external burner, but at least that will include a 50 GB BD-R disc and Roxio burning software. It is unclear at this time, if the device will include Blu-ray playback software, just in case you have a HD capable graphics system consisting of a HDCP-equipped graphics card and monitor. Lacie also announced a stylish pair of speakers, which connect to a Firewire port. As of now, we aren't sure what advantage that will bring to users besides occupying a port that isn't too common on the average PC anyway, but we'll find out when we will talk to Lacie representatives at CES. For now, the company promises that the designer speaker set will offer excellent sound fidelity for $80. Lacie Firewire speakers The company also announced the d2 Safe Hard Drive, which uses fingerprint recognition to protect data from unauthorized access. Up to ten fingerprints can be recognized by the drive, which sells for $300 in a 500 GB version. The same amount of money will also buy a new 500 GB Backup hard drive ("Quadra") which enables users, much like in similar solution offered for example by Maxtor, to launch back ups by touching a button. On the higher-end side, Lacie will be displaying network storage solutions with capacities of up to 1 TB for $500 and RAID 5 network storage solutions.

• Consumer Electronics Show 2007

  Consumer Electronics Show 2007 One Laptop Per Child The green and white OLPC laptops were seen at the Marvell booth. Marvell makes the wireless chips for the project. Shuttle Goes Big With a Tower Computer - Slide Show Playstation 3 hard to find on CES show floor You Let Me Down, Bill - Keynote Analysis Eat this, Quad FX: Here's an 8-core desktop! Join our discussion on this topic More Articles January 11, 2007 HD DVD versus Blu-ray - The porn industry says HD DVD The $100 laptop in detail - Slideshow Microsoft says Crysis will be Vista's Halo January 10, 2007 Need to port VHS to DVD or casettes to MP3? Hands on with Vista: An OS X clone or the best Windows yet? Your cellphone can re-route you around traffic jams TI Has Its Cake and Eats It With DLP and LED Displays The Unusual Stuff TI Introduces Slim LED-Backlit DLP RPTV With 100,000:1 Contrast Ratio January 9, 2007 Warner announces HD DVD - Blu-ray combo disc The Edge handheld - Not so true wireless Internet Belkin connects one DVI monitor to two computers Harman Kardon announces GPS/PMP combo TomTom to offer portable GPS device to the automotive industry Dell wants more internet bandwidth Dell goes Green, introduces optional plant a tree purchase option Dell intros 3.2 GHz quad-core enthusiast PC Microsoft and Ford promise to sync your life CarMD finds the problem, then tells you what parts and labor should cost Aliph's Jawbone headset and Noise Shield sound too good to be true iRecord - Just another frivolous iPod add-on or a valuable accessory? Ritek showcasing writable HD DVD, Blu-ray discs Sony shows OLED TV prototypes Toshiba offering four embedded NAND flash solutions Eat This, Quad FX: Here's An 8-core Desktop! Shuttle Goes Big With a Tower Computer - Slide Show Westinghouse Shows Off The Quad HDTV January 8, 2007 Roadmaster shows programmable license plate frame Playstation 3 hard to find on CES show floor DirecTV to offer 100+ HD channels by the end of the year Windows Vista gets an updated fingerprint reader Microsoft intros fancy gaming keyboard Microsoft, Broadcom aim to lower cost of HD DVD players VoodooPC introduces new Envy gaming notebook iRobot unveils programmable robot Motorola aims to raise the level of personalization for mobile devices Motorola, Sprint-Nextel to bring Wimax to Chicago Intel rolls out new quad-core processor Core 2 Quad Q6600 MSN pairs up with Garmin to offer local data on GPS devices Yahoo launches Go for Mobile 2.0 on Motorola RAZR's Lensbabies bend SLR lenses EA Mobile comes of age, Tetris still addictive Making use of those cool new cell phone features: ShoZu Hitachi touts HDD/DVD hybrid camcorder and a $2500 50" LCD Webaroo promises free offline browsing Asus demoing UWB HDMI connection system D-Link puts draft 11n in new networked media player First horseman of apocalypse in Las Vegas Ruckus Wireless intros 'Video-Grade' USB wireless adapter OQO releases model 02 UMPC HD DVD slams Blu-ray, talks innovation Netgear and BitTorrent team up on high-definition content delivery PC users not hungry for terabyte drives ViewSonic highlights widescreen LCD monitors and iPod front projector Microsoft to showcase remote-controlled USB handsets and UMPCs You let me down, Bill - keynote analysis Bill Gates Unleashes Windows Home Server AMD unleashes second generation of Live! platform Sony plans next Blu-ray attack at HD DVD Sony hits one million shipped PS3s, hints at new features AOL Video to run on Sony's TVs January 7, 2007 Palm launches Treo 750 smartphone Samsung launches UMPC with flash hard drive JVC first to offer HD HDD videocam Battle of the 108"ers Philips AmBX to bring light, wind and good vibrations to gamers Philips goes ambi-extreme LG puts "aggressive" sticker on 71" plasma TV VoodooPC to show off AMD's Quad FX with 18 ft. screens Toshiba to offer 1080p HD DVD player for $600 Keep the bad guys away with full disk encryption Netgear refreshes Zetera-based NAS New HD media player from Netgear Netgear intros standalone Skype / PSTN DECT phone LG to roll out dual-format Blu-ray/HD DVD player in Q1 LG jumps into iPod accessory land with ultra-cool deck Nobint Falcon showcases 3D touch device - think a mouse, only better Even Duracell is in the iPod accessory market now A full keyboard for a normal sized phone Shure tries to be more consumer friendly with sane-priced quality earphones 3D gaming, surround sound, and waterproof accessories Linksys gets into the consumer NAS game Slideshow: Terabyte, hybrid HDD and beyond Want wireless Internet access at CES? Then pay $400 Growing pains at the Consumer Electronics Show First live demo of mobile Wimax January 6, 2007 LG more serious about 1080p MSI rings in second wave of AMD Live! entertainment PCs MSI to release second notebook with crystal inlays The battle for the digital home - analyst opinion January 5, 2007 A preview of what you can expect to see on the showfloor Toshiba to ship HD DVD writer in February Hitachi announces 1 TB hard drive Corel updates DVD Copy 5 with iPod, Vista support Proton to introduce two more full HDTVs BenQ to debut new DLP projectors Lacie announces $1150 Blu-ray burner January 4, 2007 Sandisk surprises with Flash hard drive announcement Hybrid hard drives promoted through industry alliance Logitech integrates computer speakers with iPod dock LG to unveil combo Blu-ray - HD DVD player MSI to showcase AMD Live! systems Samsung develops double-sided LCD A floating iPod sound system for your swimming pool Toshiba to show fuel cell-powered MP3 player Toshiba to debut external USB hard drive January 3, 2007 XM to go beyond radio with weather, video MSI to showcase medical notebook Lexar upgrades Jumpdrives for Windows Vista Westinghouse to show Quad HDTV January 2, 2007 Patriot to demonstrate 1302 MHz memory modules Fujitsu to demo H.264 IC for HD recording Showtime to launch video download service for Windows Vista Autonet announces Internet access for cars Vutec to show off Tri-Plex screen

• When it comes to performance requirements, gaming and multimedia (a category in which we lump digital video and photo editing) are close cousins; their hardware requirements are fairly similar.  So we weren’t too surprised when AVADirect sent us an overclocked gaming-oriented rig for this roundup. One problem with gaming rigs, however, is they’re often noisy because acoustics usually take a back seat to things like frame rate. AVADirect’s entry, however, turned out to be surprisingly quiet. Opening up the Thermaltake V9 VJ40001W2Z enclosure revealed how they accomplished this trick: The Core i7 920 is cooled by CoolIT System’s Domino A.L.C. liquid-cooling system (the acronym stands for Advanced Liquid Cooling). The Domino A.L.C. is filled with an anti-corrosive, anti-fungal cooling agent and sealed at the factory, so you don’t need to worry about spilling anything inside your computer while refilling a reservoir. A backlit LCD informs you of the CPU temperature, fan speed, and other statistics.  Processor and Motherboard AVADirect chose the lesser of Intel’s standard Core i7 CPUs for this rig, the Core i7 920, but they then goosed its core clock from 2.66 GHz to 3.33 GHz--in excess of the $1,000 Extreme chip Intel sells at the top of its lineup. We didn’t encounter any stability issues with the system running at the higher clock rate, and it really helped AVADirect beat up on Alienware’s X58 in our productivity and media benchmarks. Alienware used the same part for their rig, but they cool it with air and run it at its stock clock speed. But then, Cyberpower did the same thing to AVADirect by using a pricier liquid-cooled Core i7 940. The CPU is plugged into an Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard based on Intel’s X58 chipset (which is the only game in town at this point, since Intel maintains that Nvidia has no right to produce chipsets for Intel CPUs with integrated memory controllers). It’s not the most over-the-top motherboard on the market, but it’s a solid performer that’s been well-received by reviewers. In fact, you can check out how the board's little brother, the P6T, did in our recent $200-$300 X58 Motherboard Roundup. The motherboard supports both SLI and CrossFireX, so you don’t have to choose between Nvidia’s and AMD’s multi-video card solutions (AVADirect went with Nvidia; more on that in a moment). There’s a full complement of six DIMM slots to support the Core i7’s triple-channel architecture, and AVADirect filled three of them with 2 GB sticks of Corsair XMS3 DDR3 running at 1,333 MHz. The machine came with the 64-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium, an essential requirement if the system is to make use of all that memory. The P6T Deluxe also features dual Gigabit Ethernet (courtesy of a Marvell Yukon 88E8056) and onboard eight-channel audio provided by Analog Devices’ SoundMax AD2000B audio chip. Graphics The P6T Deluxe features three PCI Express 2.0 slots, but only two of them can operate in x16 mode at once. AVADirect dropped a pair of EVGA GeForce GTX 260 video cards in these to run in SLI. The GTX 260 is an upper-mid-range GPU with 192 stream processors and a 448-bit interface to 896 MB of DDR3 memory. The cards are cooled by standard heatsinks and fans; their cores and memory run at stock clock rates of 576- and 999 MHz, respectively. A cable pipes digital audio from the motherboard’s S/SPDIF header to the S/PDIF input one of the video cards, so that you can use an HDMI adapter and a single cable to deliver both digital audio and video to a television or A/V receiver. Storage and Optical The operating system is installed on a speedy 147 GB Fujitsu MBA3147RC SAS hard drive, with a massive 1.5 TB Seagate Barracuda drive available for storage. The Fujitsu is a server-class drive that spins its platters at 15,000 RPM; the Seagate is a more consumer-oriented drive that spins at a more typical 7,200 RPM. This arrangement left three internal 3.5-inch drive bays available.  AVADirect mounted a pair of Samsung Super-WriteMaster DVD burners in the chassis, leaving two external 5.25-inch drive bays open. We consider a CD/DVD burner to be essential equipment in any PC, but one is typically enough; we would have preferred to see a Blu-ray drive in that second bay. A Blu-ray burner would likely have blown the budget, but since we requested an all-around multimedia PC, we expected to be able to watch HD movies on these rigs. A Sabrent CRW-UINB media-card reader occupied one of the two external 3.5-inch drive bays. In addition to supporting every type of flash-memory media we can think of, there’s a third USB port (there are two more on top of the case itself). These drives are so inexpensive (you can buy this model online for less than $15) that we so no reason why any multimedia-oriented PC should come without one.  Enclosure As we mentioned earlier, AVADirect picked Thermaltake’s V9 VJ40001W2Z to house their offering. The V9 is an attractive mid-tower case fabricated from steel. The power supply—our eval unit was equipped with a 750-watt Corsair TX750—sits at the bottom of the enclosure, which renders the unit less top heavy than designs that mount the PSU up top. There’s no door on the front to cover the exposed drive bays, but we didn’t miss it; the more you access the drives there, the more likely you’ll be to wind up taking it off its hinges anyway. A 120 mm fan lit by a red LED draws air in through the front of the V9 and blows it over the five 3.5-inch drive bays. Air is exhausted by a 25m mm fan in the rear of the chassis and a huge 230 mm on top. The large fan on top is covered by a flimsy steel mesh that caved in when we leaned on it to plug in our mouse and keyboard into the rear USB ports. Whoops! Fortunately, it didn’t affect the fan’s rotation. There’s a mic input and headphone output adjacent to the two USB ports on the top of the case, but there’s no front-mounted FireWire or eSATA port. That will leave enthusiasts doing a reach-around to plug in a FireWire-equipped digital camcorder.