News - LaCie d2 Blu-ray drive offers 8x external burning

[HEXUS]

LaCie has doubled the burn speed of its external Blu-ray drive, but it won't come cheap.

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[Blackbadger]

8x BD-R disks don't exist.
6x are not available anywhere in the uk (or at least I cant find) and are silly money in the USA. (same price as a small HD for 1 blank)
4x cost around £5-12 depending on brand.

8x coasters are going to be a financial nightmare.

I fail to see the point in these until media costs come down by a huge %.

[s_kinton]

8x BD-R disks don't exist.
6x are not available anywhere in the uk (or at least I cant find) and are silly money in the USA. (same price as a small HD for 1 blank)
4x cost around £5-12 depending on brand..

Its always been the same though...the burners hit the market and the media follows. It just takes time.

[Blackbadger]

I agree yes that over time prices drop. However if the prices don't drop fast they will become redundant.

The drive is aimed for

video professionals wanting to backup or store large quantities of data.

A video pro will be working with uncompressed data that is around 10gb per min for HD video. So firstly they will have to split the data up into 5 min chunks to fit into the 50gb barrier.
The 50gb dual layer discs cost approx £15-20 for a dual layer 4x speed disk. and will take approx 25 mins to write.
So for a basic 30 mins of footage it will take you over 3 hrs just to write the data, and around £100 in consumables.
It's not even remotely viable.

Whilst a hard drive will backup the data in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost.

When blank cd's and dvd's came out first, sure they were pricey, but the price was still reasonable especially in comparison to alternative backup methods. The price fell due to many people using using them.. I cant see this happening with blu-ray media soon, as why would anyone want to use such a slow and expensive system when faster cheaper methods are available.

The only thing that could be in bd-r's favour is the long term life of the disc.. which is yet unknown.. They are using non organic dies, so maybe they don't fail (unlike cd's/dvd's) over time when kept in safe archive conditions.

[DaveBG]

I give thumbs up for this drive. Although there is still not 8x media available the drive seems solid. I had one external burner from them and it was flawless.

BTW is there 6x media available at bargain prices?