MCE announces 6X Blu-ray burner for Macs
updated 03:40 pm EDT, Mon June 30, 2008
MCE - 6X Blu-ray burner
MCE has announced its Blu-ray recordable drive, capable of 6X Blu-ray write-speeds and 16x DVD±R speeds. The drive plays both Blu-ray and HD-DVD media and features LightScribe compatibility and it will allow professionals to author Blu-ray movies using Adobe Premier Pro CS3's Encore software. In addition, it supports the production of basic Blu-ray movies from Roxio's Toast 9 Titanium (with the Toast HD/BD plug-in). The player also can play Blu-ray and HD-DVD media using Windows XP/Vista on a Boot Camp partition. The bare drive, for a Mac Pro or Power Mac G4/G5 running Mac OS X 10.4 or higher, available now for $500; an external FireWire/USB 2.0 option for $750. (The site does not mention any compatibility--for the USB/FireWire external version--with other Macs; and MacNN has contacted MCE for more details.)
The new Blu-ray drive works with all DVD and CD media, and writes to both 25 GB and 50 GB BD-R and BD-RE (rewritable) Blu-ray disks. Speed specs for the new drive are 6X for 25 GB BD-R, 4X to 50 GB BD-R and 16X to DVD±R. It also burns at 4X speeds to DVD±R DL, 5X to DVD-RAM and 40X to CD-R media, among others.
MCE ships the package with an installation package and software for Windows Boot Camp playback of both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. It can be purchased with Toast and the HD/BD plug-in for an additional $100. MCE also offers a package with Adobe Premier Pro CS3 with Encore for $1300.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 1999
Nice...
It looks like these prices are falling at a good clip. I hope that by X-Mas, these will be down in the $300 range, at which point I might just take the plunge. The blank discs are still too pricey for me to really care about this yet, but we're getting warmer...