Lite-On Goes Blu-ray For Capacity And Performance

The LH-2B1S (Fig. 1) is Lite-On's second-generation Blue-ray drive. It's a result of the company's initiative to lower the cost of entry while providing the 2x performance and 25Gbyte capacity needed for the latest high-definition movies and backup requirements. It uses a SATA interface instead of the IDE interfaces found on older optical drives. The LH-2B1S drive can handle Blue-ray BD-R and BD-RW disks at 2x speeds. It can also read and write DVD and CD media as well. The former DVD-R and DVD+R works at 12x speeds while the latter runs as 32x speeds. Of course, these are relative to the respective media types. The drive can handle hi-def video, although it must be paired with a matching video card (most media of this type are encrypted, requiring end-to-end security). Likewise, hi-def video requires plenty of compute horsepower, so a 2GHz processor is usually the minimum. Hardware accelerated video helps as well. Installation of the drive is trivial since it uses SATA instead of IDE. No more jumpers or large cables. The drive has proven to be durable, and has handled all the media I could throw at it. Of course, the Blue-ray media tends to be a bit more expensive. Related Links Lite-On