DailyTech - LG Electronics Introduces 4X Blu-Ray Recorder

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Hardware LG Electronics Introduces 4X Blu-Ray Recorder
Purav Sanghani - May 30, 2006 6:35 PM

24 comment(s) - last by sxr7171.. on Jun 11 at 7:21 PM

LG Electronics GBW-H10N - Image Courtesy Blu-ray.com

LG will bring us twice the recording speeds in first-gen Blu-ray hardware

Blu-ray is expected to hit full force this summer as manufacturers begin launching their set top Blu-ray disc players and BD-R drives for PCs to the mass market along with content, supposedly. A handful of optical storage device manufacturers have already announced versions of PC drives with recording speeds of up to 2x for their first Blu-ray disc writers.

LG Electronics, a long time participant in the optical disc drive market, has gone a step further to announce a summer launch of a 4x Blu-ray disc drive to record to the new high-density media at twice the speed of first generation competitors.

LG's GBW-H10N is said to be able to write to BD-R media at 4x and BD-RE at 2x with support for reading and writing to DV-RAM media at 5x speeds. Below are the specs from LGE:

LG Electronics GBW-H10N Recorder

Reading

Writing

BD-ROM (SL) 4.8x max

BD-R (SL) 2x, 4x CLV

BD-ROM (DL) 4x max

BD-RE (SL) 2x CLV

BD-R (SL) 4.8x max

DVD-R 2x, 4x CLV, 8x, 12x PCAV

BD-RE (SL) 2x CLV

DVD-R Dual Layer 2x, 4x CLV

DVD-ROM (Single/Dual) 16x/8x max

DVD-RW 1x, 2x, 4x, 6x CLV

DVD-R/RW/ 10x/10x/8x max

DVD-RAM 2x, 3x ZCLV, 5x PCAV

DVD-RAM 2x, 3x, 5x PCAV

DVD+R 2.4x, 4x CLV, 8x ZCLV, 12x PCAV

DVD-Video (CSS) 8x max

DVD+R DL 2.4x, 4x CLV

DVD+R/+RW/DL 10x/10x/8x max

DVD+RW 2.4x, 4x, 6x, 8x ZCLV

CD-R/RW/ROM 40x/40x/40x max

CD-R 4x, 8x CLV

CD-DA (DAE) 40x max

CD-RW 4x, 8x, 10x CLV

Pricing is set close to $1000 USD at the time of publication. Since this drive does not support recording to dual-layer media it may be best to wait for second generation drives and dual-layer media to hit before shelling out over a grand if you're not a die-hard optical media fan. Sony has already announced that it will begin shipping dual-layer media by the time LG plans to launch the GBW-H10N to the public and TDK has also announced availability of dual-layer media later this year though no timeframe has been given.

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Nice :)

By Clauzii on 5/30/2006 6:53:20 PM , Rating: 2

Now all the others have to double their speed, even before release :)

Competition ON!

RE: Nice :)

By Tedtalker1 on 5/30/2006 7:12:39 PM , Rating: 5

LOL 1000 clams.Great way to compete for the standard with HD-DVD.

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RE: Nice :)

By cnimativ on 5/30/2006 7:24:51 PM , Rating: 1

$1000 is way too expensive for a play-back/recording device.

I would watch porn in regular DVD and wait for HD/BR DVD price to drop below $200.

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RE: Nice :)

By Clauzii on 5/30/2006 7:31:10 PM , Rating: 2

I said competiton ON - not "Run to the warehouse!" :)

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RE: Nice :)

By hoppa on 5/30/2006 7:35:48 PM , Rating: 2

Yeah, backups are pretty much the only use I see for these things. I'm as much of a hardware and image junkie as the next guy but DVD on HD is already quite impressive... I just don't see the need to drop double the money on image quality I'll only notice if I actually look for it, and we probably won't be at that price point for a couple years anyway.

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RE: Nice :)

By jkresh on 5/30/2006 7:51:53 PM , Rating: 2

Price will probably fall fairly rapidly and $1000 is less then what the original cd players cost, less then cd burners and about what dvd burners cost. When the drives get around $200 - $300 (within a year), discs get down to $5 for single layer and hybrid drives that can read and write both come out then things will be interesting.

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RE: Nice :)

By Spadge on 5/31/2006 1:56:49 AM , Rating: 3

Wasn't the first Pioneer DVD writer like $17,000 in 1997? Heck, even four years later they'd only just dropped to $1,000.

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Yeah, gonna wait a while.

By Heatlesssun on 5/30/2006 7:26:16 PM , Rating: 2

In a years time, my guess is either Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD writers will be at the sub $300 mark, and that's when I'll take the plunge.

I really do want one of the standards to die eventually, I've never cared much for having two incompatiable dics/storage standards in the same place.

This could be pretty cool for backups, but the price has got to plummet first.

RE: Yeah, gonna wait a while.

By allnighter on 5/30/2006 7:55:43 PM , Rating: 2

And it will. Just give it a few months.

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RE: Yeah, gonna wait a while.

By Xenoterranos on 5/30/2006 8:04:59 PM , Rating: 2

agreed. The key here is that right now the formats are incompatible. If/when dual format burners come out, his market will explode. I know I'd probably buy a 1st gen dual format drive.

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RE: Yeah, gonna wait a while.

By GGA1759 on 5/31/2006 12:27:03 AM , Rating: 2

Prices will drop once the PS3 comes out.

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RE: Yeah, gonna wait a while.

By rushfan2006 on 5/31/2006 8:24:35 AM , Rating: 2

Yeah...but I'm thinking it'll be more due to the time between now and then, than it having to do anything with the direct release of PS3.

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It might not happen!

By smilingcrow on 5/31/2006 4:51:26 AM , Rating: 2

Isn’t there a danger that both these formats may not take off as PC recordable devices? DVD+-R allows you to backup data and copy DVD movies very cheaply. What do you get with the higher capacity formats? A format with larger data capacity but with less features i.e. you can’t copy commercial HD movies. So in effect they are only really useful for people with a hell of a lot of data to backup, i.e. the kind of people who post here, but not Joe Public. If Joe Public doesn’t buy them then what’s going to drive the price down? Without a large demand prices tend to stay higher.
Most people buy Celerons rather than Pentiums, if these are priced at Pentium prices the same will happen. I spent $600 on my 1x SCSI CD burner, but as much as I’d like one of these it’s not the quantum leap that CD & DVD burners were, until someone cracks the HD video formats :)

RE: It might not happen!

By crystal clear on 5/31/2006 8:01:53 AM , Rating: 2

Other manufacturers will jump into the competition & there U see the price sliding then shooting down.
Price slashing is intense in the hardware sector.

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RE: It might not happen!

By PAPutzback on 5/31/2006 9:56:25 AM , Rating: 2

Backup to Blue ray. You can get 500 gig drives for 200 bucks now. And I bet by Christmas we will see the 750 gig drives for around 300 and the terabyte drives for 400.

No which is faster and cheaper and more convenient. The only data I see being recorded on these will be video or maybe an entire MP3 collection so you can take it with you on your Laptop or future Portable Blue-Ray player. But by the time prices get affordable enough we will have 20 gig flash cards that will be ascheap if not cheaper, more portable and more durable.

And neither format will win. They are here to stay until the next new format comes out. If the Holographic format comes out and is affordable then I could see backups to a disc making sense. Not to mention we coul finally get uncompressed video.

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RE: It might not happen!

By Clauzii on 5/31/2006 4:41:24 PM , Rating: 2

But I think Joe public would also be happy with his whole music collection (MP3/192KBit/+200 CDs) on one single disc :)

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RE: It might not happen!

By sxr7171 on 6/11/2006 7:21:13 PM , Rating: 2

Yeah, it's their fault that you can't steal content on these new media.

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I expect more

By Trisped on 5/31/2006 11:51:55 AM , Rating: 2

When I shell out $1k I expect a bit more then this. Seriously, I could buy a complete player for that. Sure it wouldn't have the burn abilities, but that is what hard drives and DVDs are for.

Personally I am waiting till the hybrid HD DVD/Blue Ray drives are $200 or less. Then I will buy.

RE: I expect more

By bldckstark on 5/31/2006 12:39:29 PM , Rating: 2

I opened up my old LG CD burner and colored the lens blue with a sharpie. Now I can watch BR and burn them at 52X! Too bad the media cost $900,000.99 per single layer disc.

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RE: I expect more

By Clauzii on 5/31/2006 4:49:48 PM , Rating: 2

When the media gets in @ $10(single), 15-20(dual) (which btw. won't take forever:) I'm ready. 5xDVD capacity is soooo sweet. I can save a LOT of bookshelf space by even RAW copying my music CDs onto a BD. Roughly 35 noncompressed Audio CDs on one BD :)

And I think $300 a drive will make me buy one :) (Next year at this time, I think)

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price is not bad, really

By IMPoor on 5/30/2006 7:57:28 PM , Rating: 2

when dvd-r drives came out they cost thousands of dollars. so at $1000 this is a decent price. Of course there was not a format war when DVD recorders were released.

When prices are <$0.25 a GB for media

By d4a2n0k on 5/30/2006 8:13:16 PM , Rating: 2

is when I'll pick one of these up. Until then, i have no use for it. Hardrive prices are too cheap these days and other than backup, these new drives have no other use.

What really irks me is the fact I cant record a movie in HD from my HD DVR. Gotta love HDCP....

Gone are the days of recording your favorite movie for your OWN use to save to your library. I know some of you will say for me to just buy the DVD but then I feel I shouldnt have to pay for cable every month.

I usually do things legally but I cant wait for a way around HDCP. Its only a matter of time.

Cool

By mushi799 on 5/31/2006 12:25:39 AM , Rating: 2

Planning to upgrade next summer by then it should be reasonably priced. I can burn 5 dvds worth of Porn onto 1 blu-ray disk, AWESOME! great space saver

other media

By bunnyfubbles on 5/30/2006 7:55:45 PM , Rating: 1

4x sounds nice and all for BD, however the specs for burning other media seems to leave a lot to be desired. I guess the DVD burning speeds aren't all that bad, but if you're still burning CDs it seems like you might want to hang on to some older drives