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The war over consumer HD vs. Blu-ray products is, dare we say, starting to really burn? (Was that too much?)

Toshiba’s coming out with a biggie - the first consumer HD-DVD disc writer for PCs. (Recall that not too long ago Toshiba also demonstrated an HD-DVD writer for laptops this past October at Ceatec in Japan). The new SD-H903A is an internal, single-bay drive that will read and write HD-DVDs along with existing format CDs and DVDs . Dual-layer writing will allow for up to 30GB per HD disc which translates into about 8 hours of HD video, 7300 MP3s or 30,00 images. The drive uses a standard SATA interface, an internal 8MB buffer, and a blue-violet laser diode to read and write HD DVD-R discs. Their specs indicate that the HD-DVD-R will write at a rip-roarin’ 1x (boo!), DVD-R at 8x, DVD-RW at 2-4x and CD-RW up to 10x. Read speeds were higher only for DVD-RW at 6x and CDs at 24x.

The HD-DVD drives will be on display at CES and start hitting US store shelves this February. Price was not indicated.

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