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LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive Recorder |
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Written by Branko Lukic
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Thursday, 19 July 2007 |
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Page 2 of 4
If you place a Japanese device inside a product of a French-American firm, you get a LaCie d2 Blu-ray drive, one of the first widely available devices capable of recording “blue” discs. The device was designed by Neil Pulton. The silver casing has small guidelines on both sides, in case you are planning to place the device in LaCie's rack. Although the case in unusually long, the power unit is not placed inside the case. The front side of the device is also a bit awkward. The Blu-ray unit is placed slightly retracted into the computer case, so people with bigger fingers may have trouble reaching for the tray eject button.
This unusual solution was applied in order to integrate the on/off button on the front, whereas the back side contains the power switch and interface ports. LaCie remained loyal to Mac users, so the primary interface used to connect the device is FireWire 800. Of course, USB 2.0 is supported as well. Although the drive doesn't heat up much, a small fan is also located in the drive case, but it has a “smart” function, so you are not likely to ever hear it. The manufacturer paid much attention to the accompanying software and the rest of the bundle. The thing is that there is not much software that supports these new standards, and the really high-quality one is even more scarce. But here, the buyer receives Roxio's Easy Media Creator 8.2 XE, CyberLink's PowerDVD BD, as well as Roxio's Toast 7.1.1 Titanium. We must also mention that if you possess a Blu-ray device and appropriate software, it doesn't necessarily mean that you can immediately watch the new format films. Your graphics card must also support HDCP, and LaCie suggests a card no weaker than GeForce 7600GT or Radeon X1600. Inside the d2 Blu-ray drive, one can find a Panasonic SW-5582 Blu-ray writer.
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Optical drives 
