| Thursday, July 23 2009 |
Japanese company Marshal corp. released a new slim external Blu Ray disc (BD) writer drive. The Marshal MAL-BDP02U2 is a USB powered (and connected) external drive that uses a slot-in loading mechanism. It burns single-layer BD-R and BD-RE discs at 2x, dual-layer BD-R/RE at 1x, DVD±R at 8x, dual-layer DVD±R at 2.4x, DVD±RW at 6x, DVD-RAM at 5x, and can burn all kinds of CDs at 8x. BDs are read at 2x, DVDs at 8x, dual-layer DVDs at 6x, and CDs at 24x. The unit measures 135 (W) x 145 (D) x 20 (H) mm, and weighs in at 304 g. It hits Japanese market soon at 22,800 JPY, which is around US $240.
User comments
very cool but kinda expencive:(
It's a Blu Ray writer that's external + slim + USB powered (no DC adapter). Not that bad a price considering the average internal BD writer costs $170.
ok you got me there:o
Not a bad price for a slim Blu-Ray burner.
Might have to get this for my macbook pro, and just put another 500gb hdd in the place of my internal optical drive. I like the thin design.
woot! i want one
severly bottlenecked becose of usb hehe :p
Why does it have to be slim if it's external? Especially if it lays flat.. I know their rooms are small in japan but the ceilings aren't that low.
by: LAN_deRf_HAIt fits into a laptop bag better. Portable + small = good. :)
Why does it have to be slim if it's external? Especially if it lays flat.. I know their rooms are small in japan but the ceilings aren't that low.
by: wiakmy housemate has a USB and E-sata blu ray cage. He cant watch movies over USB, they just wont start.
severly bottlenecked becose of usb hehe :p
I have external DVD writers (actually IDE drives on external USB cases). I can play movies perfectly fine. USB is not a problem (USB 2.0 to be specific) has a theoretical rate of aprox 400mbps which translates to aprox 50Mb/s... While burning a DVD at 16X, needs like 22Mb/s and also nero ultrabuffer helps. Never had a problem in performance, at least on Nforce 730 USB controllers on my phenom-based PC. On bluray the 2x burn needs like 15Mb/s I think (for a single layer bluray). so, it seems USB is still not a bottleneck there.
I had a little accident when burning, the USB cable got loose and the burning process was interrupted and everything crashed somewhat badly... I had to restart... I also ruined the disc.
I had a little accident when burning, the USB cable got loose and the burning process was interrupted and everything crashed somewhat badly... I had to restart... I also ruined the disc.
DVD is one thing. bluray is another.
Bluray needs more bandwidth, and has heavy content protection.
USB caps out at 30MB/s - its a well known fact that USB 2.0 heavily exaggerates its real speed.
Bluray needs more bandwidth, and has heavy content protection.
USB caps out at 30MB/s - its a well known fact that USB 2.0 heavily exaggerates its real speed.
Maybe the should have used E-sata then :p
by: MusselsBD works fine over USB. I play BD on my laptop all the time with my Lite-On external. No tricks like AnyDVD either. Just plug in the drive, and fire up Cyberlink.
DVD is one thing. bluray is another.
Bluray needs more bandwidth, and has heavy content protection.
USB caps out at 30MB/s - its a well known fact that USB 2.0 heavily exaggerates its real speed.
30MB/s is good enough for 245760 Kb/s. No BD's are encoded (or even need to be) at that kind of bitrate. That would take up only like 29minutes on a 50GB disk. lol.
would take up only like 29minutes on a 50GB disk
But at sexy quality! :D
If these were esata one could mod them to put a few inside 5.25" bays
by: Wile Ehousemates problem must be related to his cage then.
BD works fine over USB. I play BD on my laptop all the time with my Lite-On external. No tricks like AnyDVD either. Just plug in the drive, and fire up Cyberlink.
30MB/s is good enough for 245760 Kb/s. No BD's are encoded (or even need to be) at that kind of bitrate. That would take up only like 29minutes on a 50GB disk. lol.