LaCie Doubles the Burn Speed of Its High-Capacity Blu-ray Drive

February 2, 2009

* Burn Blu-ray discs up to 8x
* Store up to 50GB of videos, files and other data on one disc
* Multi-format BD (Blu-ray) and DVD/CD writer in one
* Durable d2 design with whisper-quiet operation

Today LaCie announced that it has doubled the speed at which its high-performance, large-capacity LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive burns discs to eight times (8x) standard data writing rates. The increased speed to burn files applies to both single and dual-layer discs. LaCie also has upgraded the authoring and backup software that ships standard with the product.

The LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive packs up to 50 GB of data, or four hours of high-definition video, on a single Blu-ray disc – making it an ideal tool for video professionals and anyone who wants to backup and store significant amounts of data on reliable removable media. It sports both FireWire and USB 2.0 interfaces for high-speed throughput between the drive and a PC or Mac.

"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 exceptionally quiet LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive comes bundled with the newly revised Easy Media Creator 10 and Toast 9 Titanium software. The easy-to-use software lets Mac and Windows users master video and audio files onto Blu-ray, DVD and CD discs. With the tools customers can also schedule backups for data files, edit videos, create audio mixes and much more.

Plus, users can work with three popular codexes-MPEG2, AVC and VC-1-when creating their Blu-ray content. And the LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive supports a dozen Blu-ray, DVD and CD formats, including BD-ROM, BD-ROM AACS, BD-R, BD-RE, DVD±R, CD-R and others.

Availability
The LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive is available now and starts at $449.99. LaCie products are available through the LaCie Online Store or LaCie resellers. For more information, visit www.lacie.com.

Topping the quintet of drives is the BD-M100A (pictured above), a 2x Blu-ray writer for desktops that can also burn single- and dual-layer DVDs. Optiarc also rolled out the BD5500A, 5500S, 5600S, and 5710S, all with the same specs (see the gallery for a full spec list) except for their laptop-sized form factor and serial ATA connectivity on the models ending with "S". Details on all these drives were murky, but pricing is said to start at 599 Euros, or $796, and they'll be available in July. – Charlie White

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