Toshiba's pathetic first HD DVD writers

[jsl]

SD-H903A
SD-L902A
1x HD DVD-R speed and no support for rewritable HD DVD (the specs for HD DVD-RW are not even finished yet AFAIK).

Edit: A press release for the SD-H903A: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/arch ... c3398.html

[Ian]

Hey, at least their new desktop drive supports SATA.

I'm curious to hear how much the SD-H903A will be. If its around $300, I can see people buying it. Any more than that, and you're probably better off buying a Blu-ray writer. That is if you need to record large amounts of data. I don't think most of us do yet.

A few pics..

[dolphinius_rex]

Wow.... how many months late is this drive now? And 1x HDDVD-R and no HDDVD-RW support is the best they could do?

Well, Toshiba and optical drives have never been a good combination anyways.

[dolphinius_rex]

I posted this elsewhere, but someone told me I really ought to post it here too... so here it is

So Toshiba has announced their HDDVD burner for PC's now... and assuming it doesn't get pushed back again, it should be released around late february. Then you'll be able to burn HDDVD-Rs at break neck 1x speeds, along with HDDVD-RDL's at 1x (which don't exist in recordable form yet...). Playback is also clocking in at a super fast 1x for HDDVD.

For some reason, Toshiba hasn't even given us a price for it... my guess would be because they don't KNOW yet (I haven't even heard that this drive is in mass production yet!).

Oh yeah, and if you thought you might want to try burning an HDDVD-RW first, to make sure you knew what you were doing before wasting an expensive HDDVD-R disc? Think again! They *STILL* haven't finalized the HDDVD-RW format, so therefore, there is no media and no support for it on the Toshiba drive.

Great format guys, and great job Toshiba. You just keep that anti-Sony propaganda up, since it's about the only thing you can do right!

I guess the question we should all be asking is... at CES this year, will they be displaying the same physical HDDVD-R burner that they displayed LAST year at CES... you know, when they said it would be out soon LAST YEAR.

[Wesociety]

Well, Toshiba and optical drives have never been a good combination anyways.

Agreed, most of the Toshiba DVD burners sucked royal @$$.

And yeah... I remember Toshiba showing me some crappy HD DVD-R recordable PC drives last year at CES that were supposed to be released LAST YEAR. They are seriously lagging here...

[dolphinius_rex]

Well, Toshiba and optical drives have never been a good combination anyways.

Agreed, most of the Toshiba DVD burners sucked royal @$$.

And yeah... I remember Toshiba showing me some crappy HD DVD-R recordable PC drives last year at CES that were supposed to be released LAST YEAR. They are seriously lagging here...

Lucky for Toshiba most news sites only report when SONY has to push a release date back...

[SkaarjMaster]

What's the deal with Toshiba these days? Their DVD burners suck and some of their DVD players don't work with some TVs and now this. I remember when their DVD players were the best (out of the affordable commericial ones that is).