LaCie Blu-ray Burns at 8x

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For a whopping $449.99, you too can own the luxurious LaCie d2 Blu-ray drive, capable of writing up to eight times standard data writing rates.

A few days ago LaCie announced that it has doubled the burn speed of its high-capacity Blu-ray drive, burning both single-layer and dual-layers disks up to 8x. The company also said that it upgraded the authoring and backup software -Easy Media Creator 10 and Toast 9 Titanium- that ships standard with the product as well. The LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive is available now through the LaCie Online Store or LaCie resellers.

“With the doubling of the speed to burn Blu-ray discs, video professionals will be able to spend more time creating content and less time on production,” said Christelle Dexet, Multimedia Product Manager for LaCie. “And for those who need to safely store large quantities of information for extended periods of time on secure removable media, the LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive is an ideal solution.”

The drive supports both FireWire and USB 2.0, packs up to 50 GB of data, and features a durable d2 design with "whisper-quiet operation." The company said that users can master video and audio files onto Blu-ray , DVD and CD disks with the provided software, create audio mixes, schedule backups and more. Users can also work with three popular codexes—MPEG2, AVC and VC-1—when creating their Blu-ray content. The LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive supports BD-ROM, BD-ROM AACS, BD-R, BD-RE, DVD±R, CD-R and many more.

"The LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive’s writing process ensures record authenticity and longevity on sturdy write-once discs with an enhanced scratch-resistant hard coating surface. It also offers a packet writing option. By choosing Blu-ray technology, you get safe storage with a low cost-per-gigabyte," reads the product's webpage.

The product specs also dictate that users will need a HDCP GPU + HDCP ready display and Windows OS in order to play a protected BD movie in HD through a digital DVI or HDMI interface. Minimum system requirements include 512 MB RAM, NVIDIA's GeForce 6600GT or AMI's X1600 GPU for HD video playback, and a monitor capable of 1280x1024 resolutions.

10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • AMI? And the burner's interface? eSATA? IEEE1394?
    Reply
  • Tekkamanraiden
    "The drive supports both FireWire and USB 2.0, packs up to 50 GB of "
    Reply
  • Tindytim
    We finally have a Blu-ray drive that can beat those 20x DVD writers in speed, and it's by a large margin aswell (288 Mbps vs 211 Mbps).
    Reply
  • Luscious
    This drive won't make any sense until we see some 8x BD DL discs out there to burn on.

    I wish media support was wider for Blu-ray and cheaper.
    Reply
  • bluzbrother
    Why would anyone pay that much? I paid that much for an entire HP desktop with a LG blu-ray burner 6x BD-R (granted it was refurbished). Remember when DVD burners were $400+? Sure seems like a waste of money... especially for the cost of media.
    Reply
  • Silluete
    whoaaa... a burner at same price with my pc cool...
    Reply
  • liemfukliang
    Anyone here using 20X DVD RW and burn the DVD at 20x? I have 16x dvd rw but only use 4x, 6 at much, 12 when I forgot setting in Nero.
    Reply
  • slapdashzero
    I second Luscious. It might as well be a 100x burner, for the media that's available right now. You'll never find 8x Blurays outside of NASA or something anyway.
    Reply
  • tenor77
    I'm not sure what's worse, showing up too early or too late, but either way there's not much reason or demand for this yet. Not sure when the average user would see this as neccessary, but I doubt anything above $200 is gonna generate much interest.
    Reply
  • FrustratedRhino
    While this drive isn't peticularly game changing the fact companies are pursuing this can maybe spur the disc manufacturers to push out 8x discs faster. If more companies push the envelope soon there will be nothing slower than 8x =)
    Reply