Plextor launches its first Blu-ray drive: the PX-B900A

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28 Jun 06 16:49 by DoMiN8ToR in category Uncategorized To news archive

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Exciting news today as Plextor has announced their first Blu-ray drive, the PX-B900A. This drive will become available in September/October of 2006 and is also able to to write DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RAM, CD-R and CD-RW and comes standard with 8 MB of buffer space, something many people also ask for in DVD-recorders.

The PX-B900A not only uses the latest Blu-ray technology, but is also a highly versatile dual-layer DVD drive that combines multiple formats ‘“ DVD+/-R/RW and RAM – into one.

It can accept both 12cm and 8cm discs (in the horizontal position) and has a large 8MB buffer to ensure there is no data interruption. Write speeds: 2x BD-R/BD-RE, 8x DVD+R/-R/+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 4x DVD+R/-R DL, 5x DVD-RAM, 24x CD-R and 16x CD-RW.

The internal (ATAPI) re-writer drive is capable of writing and re-writing Blu-ray discs at 2x (BD-R and BD-RE) up to a maximum capacity of 25GB for single layer and 50GB for dual-layer.

Source: CDFreaks

16 Comments

psychoace: Posts: 351; Posted on: 28 Jun 06 17:20

Does the BD Standard allow buffer under-run protection?

Discman: Posts: 155; Posted on: 28 Jun 06 17:23

Plextor took ages to bring out a DVDR drive! Seems they learned that they need to jump on Blu-ray early!

Lord KiRon: Posts: 257; Posted on: 28 Jun 06 17:52

No more Plextors , old SCSI CDRs were great but last models of DVD burners ... Regarding BD disks I think I (as majority of the users) will wait either to dual format writer or one of the formats to die. (And I preffer HD DVD anyway since you at least can copy them to HDD and stream over the network even when size is a bit smaller).

psychoace: Posts: 351; Posted on: 28 Jun 06 18:09

Blu Ray also has that function Lord Kiron it's called managed copy I believe but I know it's been talked about by one of the chairman of the blu ray side and said they are implementing it. Anyhow this is about BD burning that dosn't mean backup of BD movies you have but using BD as a storage device.

Arrow: Posts: 774; Posted on: 28 Jun 06 18:33

Is this a proper Plextor or a rebadged drive?

Ian@CDRLabs.com: Posts: 153; Posted on: 28 Jun 06 18:50

I have a sneaking suspicion that its manufactured by Panasonic

shimman: Posts: 596; Posted on: 28 Jun 06 19:40

afaik, it is panasonic & NOT plextor design according to the rumor, plextor will bring out the in-house-designed hd-dvd burner by fall of 2006 with sanyo chipset. another rumor says dual format (bd & hd-dvd) drive by end of this year....

Arrow: Posts: 774; Posted on: 28 Jun 06 20:06

Ok, then its Panasonic. Time will tell when Plex own drive will come out. Like with introduction od DVD burners they used rebadged NEC.

agomes: Posts: 1232; Posted on: 28 Jun 06 21:06

Any idea about system requirements? Not CPU and so, but DRM related: graphic interfaces/connectors and software.

psychoace: Posts: 351; Posted on: 28 Jun 06 21:51

You don't need a drm to burn anything but to watch retail movies (not one's you burnt yourself) you need hdcp compliant devices which means new monitor and video card. Atleast that is what I heard but I have read nothing official on that.

Hemispasm: Posts: 5249; Posted on: 29 Jun 06 00:36

Any info on the price?

thyfleshconsumed: Posts: 174; Posted on: 29 Jun 06 00:41

way more expensive than it should be

Ian@CDRLabs.com: Posts: 153; Posted on: 29 Jun 06 01:47

The Panasonic is about $1000. The Plextor version will probably be more.

Lord KiRon: Posts: 257; Posted on: 29 Jun 06 17:08

In BD the managed copy IS NOT MANDATORY and can be turned on/off by disk manufacturer (guess in what state all tis MPAA studios will set it?) About data storage ... with such sizes 25GB or 30GB per side is not really such a deal while price of the media is, not to mention Microsoft's support.

agomes: Posts: 1232; Posted on: 30 Jun 06 01:44

Yes, you don't really need DRM at all !!! What I read was that probably Blu-ray would require software that would require DRM implementation and HDMI/HDCP could be one of the requirements. I know it sounds strange, but one never knows. And, no one have made it clear: if you edit and burn to Blu-ray a HD home movie...will DVI connection be allowed to return the full HD quality? This was the reason why I made the question.

peterosesbookie: Posts: 26; Posted on: 30 Jun 06 18:40

No one that I have seen has been able to copy blu-ray or HD-Dvd movies out in the main stream. The only HD movies that have been sent out have been TS streams of HD movies. To Play TS streams, you need a very powerful system (Dual Cpus with Dual Core) and high end Graphics card with VIVO capibilities with HDTV component out (like ATi all-in-wonder 9800 pro or higher) and using Media Player Classic with in XP Codec Pack 1.4.3. This has been the only way that I have found to put HD movies out to my HDTV (although I have not tried DVI to HDMI on my HDTV). cheers pete

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