Plextor Releases PX-B120U Blu-ray Drive at $99.99

Tweet

The physical formats by which we consume content has changed dramatically over the years. However, the majority dominate formats have not come to the fore front without putting up a fight. Dating back to the 1980s is the infamous Betamax vs VHS battle which had the two video cassette tape formats fighting for dominance with VHS pulling ahead towards the end of the decade. After the cassette era died off  companies started to move towards optical storage, and Laser Disc paved the way. However, after failing to catch on, companies scrambled for the next big thing.

The next major war was between MMCD/CDi and Super Density (DS) optical storage mediums. During the early 90s both formats had a plethora of highly reputable companies backing them but due to uncertainty in their future, a group of computer companies banded together and decided to boycott the formats until a common format was agreed upon. Thus, DVDs were born brining upon the era of optical storage that we’ve come to know and love today. DVDs, when first announced, amazed people at their ability to produce a much sharper image than traditional VHS tapes in addition to being able to display things such as special features.

However, once HDTVs came to prominence, the content creating community again took to the technologists of the world to produce the next big format. Thus, the HD-DVD vs Blu-ray war was waged with Blu-ray coming out on top. Being capable of holding immense amounts of data, Blu-ray discs were perfect for storing high definition movies but due to the extremely high price tag of early players, it was generally considered a luxury.

Luckily, prices have fallen dramatically and pretty much everyone is making the shift toward Blu-ray thanks to low priced players such as the recently released PX-B120U from Plextor. Priced at just $99.99 this Blu-ray player will supplement a USB touting computer perfectly as it draws all of its power from a single port – requiring no external power sources such as AC adapters.  Additionally, the PX-B120U is capable of burning both DVDs and CDs making it possibly one of the greatest valued external optical drives in existence.