Addonics Zebra Does Blu-ray and HD DVD

Want to say goodbye to the format war? Addonic's Zebra external optical drive handles both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs, and lets users write to DVD and CD media.

If the whole format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray is getting you down—or at least getting you frustrated—external storage vendor Addonics wants to come to your rescue with its new Zebra Blu-ray/HD DVD player. The device can connect to your computer using either eSATA or USB 2.0, and can read from either Blu-ray or HD DVD media. Of course, the drive can also read standard DVDs, as well as burn DVD&plusmnR/RW/DL and CD-R-RW media.

The Zebra drive supports Windows 98SE all the way up to Windows Vista, and also claims support for Linux and Mac OS X 10.4, although Linux playback is possible only with third party applications and, as for Mac OS X, no Blu-ray or HD DVD playback solutions exist yet. The drives come bundles with the Cyberlink High-Def Suite for use with Windows XP/2003/Vista.

A version of the Zebra with an eSATA interface runs $409, while a version with both eSATA and USB 2.0 interfaces is priced at $429. Both are available now.