Panasonic VW-BN2 DVD burner is not an ordinary external DVD burner. The gadget is specially designed to be used and connected to an ACVHD camera, so you can burn the video on the go. The Panasonic VW-BN2 provides a maximum speed of 8x for DVD ±R and 4x for DVD ±DL. The Panasonic VW-BN2 will be available next month for 25000 Yen ($278).
For those early adopters who want to upgrade to the latest and the greatest, here’s the first USB 2.0 HD-DVD drive from HP. The HD100 DVD-ROM, due by the end of the year, marks a shift of the company’s support for the next HD media from Blu-ray to HD DVD. The company at the same day announced the Pavilion dv9000t, also sporting the HD DVD drive. Interestingly, the image on HP site has a BD text label alongside with DVD & CD; perhaps the case is originally intended for Blu-ray. As for the HD playback, you will need at least a Pentium single-core 840 3.2Ghz or a AMD 64 X2 2.2Ghz in addition to a nVidia GeForce 7600GT or ATI X1600. External output will require a HDMI or HDCP-compliant DVI-D connection.
HP USB 2.0 HD-DVD Drive
The HD DVD, DVD & CD read speeds top at 2.4x, 5x and 14x respectively. 1x in HD DVD denotes 4560KB/s transfer rate. Double-layer DVD from both camps seems to be supported, but HP has yet revealed their speeds. LightScribe is absent in this model. The self-powered HD100 comes with a copy of CyberLink PowerDVD HD DVD Edition.
