Although everyone's talking about Blu-ray nowadays, the truth of the matter is that the DVD is still far from being extinct, simply because internal Blu-ray burners are still too expensive for the large majority of users. For this reason, it's great to see some news from the DVD front, and that's exactly what Lite-On's providing, as the company has just unveiled a fresh line of internal DVD writers that deliver a maximum write speed of 24X on select DVD media.

For the time being, PLDS has planned the release of three high-speed writers. The first to arrive will be the iHAS324 - 24X SATA with SmartErase, which will land in mid-March, followed by the iHAP424 - 24X PATA with SmartErase and LightScribe, which should become available at the end of March. Finally, the last to arrive will be the iHAS624 - 24X SATA, which will feature SmartErase, LightScribe and LabelTag technologies and will be available in mid-May.

As mentioned above, besides the very high burning speeds, the new internal drives also provide two features called LabelTag and SmartErase. LabelTag is a new feature that allows users to create a label ring on the data side of any standard recordable media, with no special media required. SmartErase, which is also included in all new 24X DVD writers, provides users with a permanent solution for erasing discs with confidential data. With SmartErase, users can be sure that private and sensitive data is securely erased and cannot be recaptured.

“PLDS is proud to manufacture the fastest 24X writers in the market, especially with included technologies such as LabelTag,” said Christine Hsing, Marketing Manager at PLDS, commenting on the company's latest release. “LabelTag provides a cost-effective and flexible method for professional disc labeling, a great solution for today’s busy professional and people on-the-go.”

Unfortunately, PLDS has not provided any pricing data, which means that we'll most likely find out more on the subject when these ultra-speedy drives actually arrive in stores (or perhaps, during CeBIT, when we get to visit PLDS' booth).


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