Have a need to not only burn CDs and DVDs but also that pretender to the next-gen optical crown, Blu-Ray? Philips has got you covered with their new TripleWriter, which can burn BD-ROM, BD-R, and BD-RE media at a blazing 2x. All that for the low, low—did we mention low?—price of $1045.
One assumes it can also read Blu-Ray discs, which I suppose makes it a viable choice, since standalone Blu-Ray players are going to run about $1000 anyway.
In related news, Pioneer, who along with Samsung was supposed to be one of the first to deliver standalone Blu-Ray players to market this month, has delayed the release of their debut player to September, and in a bizarre move, has announced its plans to exit the DVD player business. Instead, the company will move entirely to producing Blu-Ray products.
Just a tip, Pioneer: you might want to invest in another basket. Last we checked, HD DVD wasn’t dead yet.
I think the move to Blu-Ray is a smart one, but it'd help if Sony and others made the same move. It would push blu-ray further by decreasing DVD production and use and increasing those of Blu-ray. Thus, it would decrease Blu-ray price, and in some cases increase DVD price (or reduce profits, wich would essentially have a bigger effect. Toshiba would gladly switch to blu-ray over losing too much profit, but that's a pretty rare/exreme case).
I do think Sony and other Blu-ray supporters should make the move, and dump DVD.
...and that's my two cents.