Addonics' Pocket DVD/CDRW

If you're looking for a gadget that frees up a few drive bays and think that it's silly that your CD burner and DVD player are two separate units, you might want to check out Addonics' combination DVD/CDRW drive. It plays DVD movies or audio CDs, burns original CDs, and is about the size of a CD case. The Pocket DVD/CDRW drive gives you FireWire, CardBus and USB 2.0 interfaces via an interchangeable cable and features an 8x DVD player, 8x CDRW burner, and a 24x CD-ROM drive in a 5.62 x 5.31 x .87" enclosure that weighs 14 ounces. Addonics bundles the Pocket DVD/CDRW drive with CD mastering software and MPEG-2 decoding software for DVD movie playback. The drive can record data to CDRW media in five modes: Track at Once, Multisession, Disc at Once, Session at Once, and Packet Writing and is compatible with eight different multimedia formats, including DVD, CD-ROM, CD-ROM XA, CD-I, CD-DA, CD-Bridge, CD-Extra, and Video CD. The Pocket DVD/CDRW has a data transfer rate of 3600 kB/sec (24x CD) and 10,600 kB/sec (DVD 8x). No software drivers are required for connecting the drive via the USB or FireWire ports on computers running Windows Me, 2000, and XP. Software drivers included are for Windows 98SE and CardBus connection. Addonics also sells a line of optional controllers that includes a USB 2.0 card, FireWire card, and CardBus FireWire adapter for upgrading notebook or desktop PCs. The list price for Pocket DVD/CDRW starts at $399 for the USB 2.0 version.