The first USB 2.0 HD-DVD drive has been launched from HP. The HD100 DVD-ROM, due by the end of the year, marks a shift of the company’s support for the next HD media from Blu-ray to HD DVD. Interestingly, the photo on HP site has a BD text label alongside with DVD & CD; perhaps the case is originally intended for Blu-ray. As for the HD playback, you will need at least a Pentium single-core 840 3.2Ghz or a AMD 64 X2 2.2Ghz in addition to a nVidia GeForce 7600GT or ATI X1600. External output will require a HDMI or HDCP-compliant DVI-D connection.

The HD DVD, DVD & CD read speeds top at 2.4x, 5x and 14x respectively. 1x in HD DVD denotes 4560KB/s transfer rate. Double-layer DVD from both camps seems to be supported, but HP has yet revealed their speeds. LightScribe is absent in this model. The self-powered HD100 comes with a copy of CyberLink PowerDVD HD DVD Edition.

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