New Bluray External USB 2 Burner.. Perfect for Storage on the Road?

[Tom Lowe]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136145

I was thinking this looks really handy for backing up footage data on the road. Also, for guys who are shooting a lot of nature and outdoor stuff in remote locations, this seems like a decent way to back up super-valuable footage and maybe mail it back to the office or your home while you are on the road. Capacity up to 50GBs.

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

I'd prefer something a little more slimline if it was for on the road.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Looks good. There was another thread about it and the other new LG Blu-Ray models. I'm really thinking of getting one, but I don't know if I want the USB2 model or if I want to buy an internal SATA unit and throw it into an eSATA enclosure. About the same price either way.

[Tom Lowe]

I've really been trying to come up with a good way to safeguard and send home duplicates of high-value footage when I am in the field for weeks or months at a time. Seems much easier to mail a Bluray disc home or to a family member than to deal with mailing external hard drives. 50Gbs is a nice amount of data vs 4 or 8 with a DVD-R.

[jbeale]

or if I want to buy an internal SATA unit and throw it into an eSATA enclosure. About the same price either way.

Are there any external eSATA enclosures that work well with the SATA Blu-ray burners, like the LG GGW-H20L? Most of the enclosures I've seen are intended for hard drives only. I've found only two that appear compatible, but online reports suggest at least one enclosure will not fit the LG blu-ray door properly.

[Darren Orange]

I've thought about using flash drives. They are getting up there at 32gb now which I think you can get on new egg for less than $125 bucks. What is that about 24 minutes of 4K? Could be a good choice vs many one time use BD's.

[laguun]

I've really been trying to come up with a good way to safeguard and send home duplicates of high-value footage when I am in the field for weeks or months at a time. Seems much easier to mail a Bluray disc home or to a family member than to deal with mailing external hard drives. 50Gbs is a nice amount of data vs 4 or 8 with a DVD-R.

We are using blu-ray burners since the early days of them and are very happy.
As data media, its rewritable, speed is ok, and compability, different from high-speed burned DVD-R, is excellent.

As video media, its 1080p playback is good and you will find a player (playstation 3) in nearly any videorental for $/€ to rwent out for customers if they need.

BD-R media prices have fallen a lot since 2006/7 - they are reaching ~5€ meanwhile here in Germany.

[laguun]

What is that about 24 minutes of 4K? Could be a good choice vs many one time use BD's.
bluray is rewritable. use once (BD-R) and many (BD-RW) do exist and are fully compatible.

[Lexicon]

Best to wait til 2009. Lots of Blu-Ray burners coming out around the holidays when the latest advancements hit the market. Anything you buy now, you will probably chuck fairly quickly once something twice as fast comes out. Blu-Ray is making tremendous leaps in performance, much quicker than DVD ever did. We'll have 12x burners by late 2009 or 2010.

[Mike Zinner]

I got this LG BE06 last week and it works like a charm on my MacPro with Toast 9. You can't do much wrong with this burner, because it's cheap and it already supports 6x write speed.

Have not tried to master a Blu-ray Video Disk with Adobe Encore yet, but I think it should work without problems.

The biggest problem are Blu-ray disk prices, 10 Euros for a 25GB and 20 Euros for 50GB. So I'm not using these for storage yet, since harddrives are still much cheaper per/GB. But I am sure prices of those disc will start to go down now and will be at 1 Euro a 50 GB disk in a year or two when everybody is using them :)

[Andrew M.]

I've really been trying to come up with a good way to safeguard and send home duplicates of high-value footage when I am in the field for weeks or months at a time. Seems much easier to mail a Bluray disc home or to a family member than to deal with mailing external hard drives. 50Gbs is a nice amount of data vs 4 or 8 with a DVD-R.

When you are in the field, you have to have laptop with you, correct?
I take laptop with me that has BluRay disk build in.
Also I use CF card reader in the ExpressCard slot. Reads whole 8GB CF card in 3 minutes.
Fits perfect in to the Tamrac Cyberpack 8 together with the camera, lenses and batteries.
And you can take it with you to the cabin if you are flying.

[Tom Lowe]

When you are in the field, you have to have laptop with you, correct?
I take laptop with me that has BluRay disk build in.
Also I use CF card reader in the ExpressCard slot. Reads whole 8GB CF card in 3 minutes.
Fits perfect in to the Tamrac Cyberpack 8 together with the camera, lenses and batteries.
And you can take it with you to the cabin if you are flying.

I have that same backpack but mine is stuffed with motion control stuff, too! It's funny, because I can fit all my photo and moco stuff into that bag, but I have no room left over for sleeping bag or food, etc, if I am hoping to do an overnighter up at a lake or something. I think I need to order some of the add-on bags Tamrac offers.

Back to the point, my laptop did not come with a Bluray burner, so this external kind of appeals to me. I can also hook it up to my desktop and watch Blurays :)

[Joe Carney]

I think as long as the burners cost this much, getting an external one to share between devices is a good idea. It will still be a hassle to find power and room for it.

Sony is offering Blu Ray burners in some of their nicer laptops.