Asus BC-1205PT BD Combo

With Blu-ray taking tentative steps towards mainstream acceptance, it's heartening to see prices dropping. Blu-ray writers such as the Lite-On LH-2B1S (web ID: 110688) are tempting, but, at £400, they're out of range for those with ambitious media-centre designs. The BC-1205PT reads but doesn't write to Blu-ray discs, but will write to every other kind of blank optical media (apart from HD DVD). Single-layer DVDs are written at 12x, dual-layer discs at 4x. +/-RW discs can be burned at 6x, while DVD-RAM and CD-R/RW discs complete at 5x and 24x respectively. At just below £200, it still isn't cheap, but most people looking for HD-capable components won't need to burn next-generation discs, and the BC-1205PT offers an acceptable compromise of features versus price.

Author: Dave Stevenson