Plextor Announces First Blu-ray Drive - PX-B900A

[Ian]

I don't have a lot of info on this drive yet. Taken from CD Freaks..

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/13607

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.

[Ian]

I'm guessing this is a rebadged Panasonic SW-5582. The specs are the same:

http://panasonic.co.jp/corp/news/offici ... 421-3.html

[Alektron]

I am glad to see this product introduction. As you can see below, I tried to find out when they would introduce Blu-ray drives:

From: (edited) Alektron
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 6:30 PM
To: Tech Support
Subject: RE: Write Speed limited to 6.5x on DVD+R

Is Plextor planning to offer a Blu-ray drive soon? I hope so. Plextor would be my first choice, but if you wait too long, you'll let the others have a first-to-market advantage. I'm hoping that you make it SATA connectable. (You may want a different chipset than the PX-716SA to avoid the issues with Nforce drivers). Anyway, I hope you guys will have a press release soon for the Blu-ray drive. Please let me know if you can. I frequently post messages on CDRLABS.com, and am reading about other companies introducing their blu-ray drives first.

The response:

I am sorry, but the engineers do not tell us ahead of time of anything new. The don't want us to... 'spill the beans' before they are ready to make the announcements. By the way, you may want to check out the forums at www.cdfreaks.com There is a forum in there for Plextor users. You may be interested in that or some of the other forums there.

If you have any further problems, don't hesitate to call the technical support line at 1-800-204-0332. We are staffed from 9:00am to 12:00 Midnight Monday Through Friday Eastern Standard Time.

Thank you

Steveb

Plextor America Email Support

[dodecahedron]

shit.
their first drive model number is is 900 ...
what will their third BluRay drive be ? PX-B178,345,600A ?

oh, and by the way, PX-B800A probably means it's IDE not SATA.
unless they changed their naming scheme.

[Ian]

It's nice to see Plextor America promoting a European website. Still, its better than telling you to go to ExtremeTech or something.

I'll ask my contacts at Plextor and see what I can find out. As that Steve B guy hinted at, they don't say much until they're ready.

[Alektron]

shit.
their first drive model number is is 900 ...
what will their third BluRay drive be ? PX-B178,345,600A ?

oh, and by the way, PX-B800A probably means it's IDE not SATA.
unless they changed their naming scheme.

Strange (and dumb) choice if they went with IDE. Looks like we have to wait til Sep/Oct to find out the full specs.

Hmm, I wonder why it's only 8x write speed with DVD+R... could it be that they don't want to spin that fast for mechanical wear issues (?), OR maybe they don't want to deal with marginal 2nd tier 16x DVD+R media? Could be they would have a firmware update later. It's not a make or break point for me, though.

Ian, did you notice that Plextor only shows this drive on the European webpage, but not the North American webpage (has the 18x DVD writer)? I wonder if they are promoting first to the European market for some reason!

All this excitement about the Blu-ray drives, and it isn't here yet.

[Ian]

The Panasonic SW-5582 is IDE. I doubt Plextor is going to change the interface if they're just rebadging it. I wouldn't be surprised if the first Plextor designed drive is SATA though.

Most of these first gen Blu-ray drives write to DVD+R/-R at only 8x. They're designed for BD media first. Support for other formats come second. They probably figure most people willing to shell out $1000 for a Blu-ray drive already have a decent DVD writer.

I would not be surprised if this drive was not offered in the US. They're usually a little more conservative than the European and Japanese markets, especially with stuff like this. I am surprised though that Plextor Japan is not offering it.

[Ian]

The PX-B900A is coming to the US in late September or early October. No word on price yet. Knowing Plextor America, we'll hear more about it in August.