At this week’s CEATEC trade show in Japan, Toshiba is demonstrating what it’s calling the first HD DVD writer designed for mobile PCs, the fetchingly-named SD-L902A.
The unit supports reading and writing HD DVD disks as well as standard DVD and CD media, boasts an 8 MB onboard buffer and ATAPI interface, and is a scant 12.7 millimeters in height, making it ideal for use in notebooks, tablet PCs, and other portable gear. However, the unit is no speed demon, offering just 1× read and write speeds writing single and double-layer HD DVD media, 3× writing DVD-RAM, 4× writing single-layer DVD-R, and 2× or 2.4× writing double-layer DVD media. (Performance picks up to 16× on CD-R media, and CD read speeds reach 24×.)
“As high-definition digital media moves into the mainstream, consumers are adopting products that accommodate this improved image experience—from large-screen televisions to digital video camcorders and mobile PCs,” said Maciek Brzeski, vice president marketing, Toshiba Storage Device Division, in a release (PDF). “Toshiba’s new HD DVD writer allows mobile PC manufacturers to integrate high-definition digital video editing capabilities into their products, giving consumers a complete high-definition experience for their original content.”
Toshiba expects to start shipping sample units to manufacturers by the end of 2006; so don’t expect these to hit market until the first or second quarter of 2007.
