LACIE TO UNVEIL DVD DRIVE AT APPLE EXPO

LACIE have announced they will unveil the first external combination DVD drive with high-speed FireWire connectivity at Apple Expo, Paris, between September 26 to the 30.
Much more affordable than single function DVD-R drives, the new DVDRW combines the functionalities of DVD-R, DVD-RW and CD-RW drives.
Designed to store and deliver digital data, video and audio, the LaCie DVDRW drive records to 4.7GB DVD-R General Use discs at 2x speed (2.6 MB/sec) and to 4.7GB rewritable DVD discs (-RW) at 1x speed. It provides 6x (7.8 MB/sec) read performance for DVD-R and DVD-ROM discs.
Smaller files can also be stored on lower-cost 700MB CD-R at 8x speed or on CD-RW discs at 4x speed, while CD playback is at 24x.
The choice of using either CD or DVD media will be based on the volume of data to be archived. Standard low-cost 650MB CD-R and CD-RW media can store up to 650 colour photos, 30 minutes of MPEG-2 video, 4 hours of MP3-compressed audio or up to 50,000 documents. With 4.7GB DVD-R General Use media, users can store up to 14 hours of MP3 audio, two hours of theatre-quality video, 4,700 colour photos or more than 500,000 documents.
DVD-R General Use discs are ideal for a wide range of applications because they can be played back on most DVD-ROM drives and home DVD players. Once - the DVD-R disc is burned it becomes either a DVD-ROM or a DVD-Video disc.
Because it cannot be erased or altered, the high capacity, write-once DVD General Use media offers secure, removable storage for critical archives such as business, financial, legal or governmental.
A DVD-RW disc is also the perfect tool for video projects, software development or backup of hard disk drives as recorded data can constantly be updated. In addition, being fitted with a FireWire interface, the drive is hot-swappable and can easily be shared between workstations, regardless of their OS, thus providing noticeable investment savings.
The DVDRW is also a universal reader as it can read currently accepted CD-ROM, CD-Audio, CD-R, CD-RW and Video-CD discs, as well as DVD-R and DVD-ROM discs. The convenience of being able to easily move the drive between FireWire-equipped systems, plus the high capacity of DVD-R/RW media and popularity of CD-RW discs, will make the new LaCie DVDRW drive especially popular with creators and content developers. (CD)