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Tosh unveils HD-DVD burner for the PC

Published on 8th January 2007 by Wil Harris

The Toshiba drive is one of the first PC HD-DVD burners.

Toshiba has unveiled one of the first HD-DVD burners for the PC, dubbed the SD-H903A.

It writes to HD-DVD discs at a scarily slow 1x, and also manages to write to DVD +/- R, DVD-RAM, DVD +/- RW, CD-R, and CD-RW. Phew! It also has an 8MB buffer for reliable writing - although with HD-DVD writing, you could possibly use a bit more.

HD-DVD discs can store up to 30GB on a dual-layer disc.

It will play HD-DVD movies that are encoded with HDCP copy protection. However, if you just want to playback movies, a cheaper option is probably going to be to hack apart the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on drive, which is just a 5.25" drive in a USB case.

There are no prices as of yet, but expected it to cost a good few hundred quid.

Do you fancy having HD-DVD as a backup option? With the recent news that the AACS copy protection has been cracked, do you fancy becoming an HD pirate? Let us know your thoughts over in the forums.

14 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

rupbert 8th January 2007, 00:44

1x speed?

That's a few hours to burn one movie!

Cthippo 8th January 2007, 01:07

Be nice for data backup since hard drive capicity has outstripped removable media capicity

Rich_13 8th January 2007, 01:41

a step in the right diection... but a way to go yet. I wish they'd just have this show down with blue ray and HD-DVD, its getting annoying / boring.

samkiller42 8th January 2007, 02:44

It could be handy, small question first, Does it come in black?

Sam

mikeuk2004 8th January 2007, 12:13

1x but how many MB is it writing at one speed?

Everyone moaned about DVD writers being 1x when they came out. There is nothing to moan about here. You want a 20x or what ever then be patient and wait a couple of years to develop.

I still got a 2x CD writer at home which cost me £250 when it came out. I imagine this HD DVD is going to be a couple of hundred pounds.

rupbert 8th January 2007, 12:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeuk2004
1x but how many MB is it writing at one speed?

It's a fair point actually, I believe it writes at around 1Gb per minute.

Lazarus Dark 8th January 2007, 17:20

Quote:

do you fancy becoming an HD pirate?

yeah, right, and how many days does it take to dl a 25GB torrent on my 2mbps connection that uploads at like 100kbps? Sorry, I don't think the internet, at least in my city, is yet fast enough for 1080p piracy. Maybe in like sweden or singapore, I dont know.

rupbert 8th January 2007, 17:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lazarus Dark
yeah, right, and how many days does it take to dl a 25GB torrent on my 2mbps connection that uploads at like 100kbps? Sorry, I don't think the internet, at least in my city, is yet fast enough for 1080p piracy. Maybe in like sweden or singapore, I dont know.

On my 10Mb connection I can download a SD movie (5Gb) in just over 75 minutes.

A 1080i HD movie averages 16Gb (excluding extras etc), so it would take around 4 hours on my connection.

With most broadband isps moving to 25Mb this year, under 2 hours for a HD movie is not too bad.

I concur though that not everyone will have access to these speeds...

jezmck 8th January 2007, 22:25

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