AfterDawn: News

OWC upgrades Blu-ray burner to 8x

Just a few months after launching their quad-interface Blu-ray burner, OWC has upgraded the Mercury Pro Blu-ray drive to burn discs at up to 8x, from the previous maximum of 4x.

The rough translation of the speed equals 2GB per minute, meaning you can complete burning a dual-layer BD-50 in just over 25 minutes.



The drive, as is standard, will burn DVDs at up to 16x and CDs at up to 40x. The drive can playback all CD, DVD and BD types.

The Mercury Pro Blu-ray burner supports USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and eSATA, making it the only external burner to do so.

The burner is available now and retails for $480 USD.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 25 Feb 2009 1:22

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• 1 comment

• Pop_Smith

  Considering that 4x Blu-ray media ranges from $8.99 from Verbatim (25GB) to $34.99 (!) from Sony (50GB) the price of 8x media is going to be insane. I would guess the "early" price for a single 50GB 8x disk will be $50-$60 and a 25GB disk to be $30.
  
  Yes, prices will eventually come down, especially if Blu-ray gets higher adoption rates. However, due to the technology I don't think we will see DVD-R-level prices for 7+ years, if ever.
  
  Peace

  25.2.2009 02:13 #1