First External Blu-ray Drive to be Released Soon

HD-DVD lost the high-def disc format in battle which many seems to think it never had a chance to win from the start. After Toshiba's retreat from the forefront of the high-def disc formats, it's only normal to expect various Blu-ray-centric devices to crop up. PLDS or Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions, understands the demand for the format and hence, has come up with the world's first USB-connected external BD-ROM drive. Called the Lite-On DX-4O1S, it can read the following formats:

Blu-ray Disc media at 4X
single-layer DVD at 12X
dual-layer DVD at 8X
CD media at 32X maximum

“Due to recent market developments we can expect an increasing volume of movies to be released in high definition on Blu-ray Discs,” said Jelmer Veldman, European Marketing Manager at PLDS. “The market adoption of Blu-ray as the optical disc standard for High Definition content results in a growing demand for Blu-ray playback solutions. The portable external Lite-On BD-ROM drive allows users to playback their Blu-ray discs on any PC via a USB 2.0 cable.”

The Lite-On DX-4O1S USB external Blu-ray Drive will start shipping on the second quarter of 2008.