If you are into Blu-Ray format, then the new second generation Blu-Ray disc burner for PCs could be a nice Christmas gift.

With the new Sony BWU-200S you will be able to create a full 50 GB disc in about 45 minutes and Sony improved also the DVD+R burning speed to 16X. Blu-ray 1x equals 36Mbit/s while DVD 1x equals 11.08 Mbit/s.

By achieving this speed, Sony BWU-200S has eliminated the need for another DVD recorder. Also the drive record sa variety of video, ranging from HDV/AVCHD camcorders to Blu-ray Discs and keep the video in its native HD resolution, or down-convert to standard definition and record a DV

The first Blu-Ray disc burner released last year in July had 2X speed for burning BD-R discs. As for DVDs, BWU-100S was able to deliver 6X DVD+R and 4 X DVD-R speeds. The maximum achievable speed for BD-R discs is 12X.
The BWU-200S will be priced at $600 and it will go on sale in November. The drive has a Serial ATA interface and it will be delivered with Cyberlink BD burning software, which can be used for recording and playback.

Beside Sony, the Blu-Ray burners are offered also by the optical drives producers like LG, Lite On and Plextor.

Hitachi-LG's GBW-H10N is also capable of 4X speed for BD-R, but it supports only single layers discs.