Buffalo 8X Blu-ray burner

Buffalo has announced a new Blu-ray burner. The BR-816 is able to burn Blu-Ray media at 8x speed. Both an internal and an external version will be released. The external model, the BR-816SU2, will feature a USB 2.0 connector next to its eSATA-interface. If you wish to use the USB connection, the burning speed decreases to 6.5x.

The internal version, the BR-816FBS, has a SATA-interface and according to Buffalo it is able to always burn at the full 8x speed conforming suited media. Dual-layer Blu-ray and BD-rw media can be burned at 2x speed.
Internally the drives are identical to the Panasonic SW-5584 and have an 8mb buffer. Buffalo has bundled Cyberlink's PowerDVD 7 with the retail version. The external BR-816SU2 will cost around $435, the internal BR-816FBS $380.

 ComputerBase.de that both the burners wll be released in August.

Format	Writing Speed
BD-R SL	8x
BD-R DL	2x
BD-RE SL, DL	2x
DVD+R/-R	16x
DVD+R/-R DL	8x
DVD-RW	6x
DVD+RW	8x
DVD-RAM	5x
CD-R	48x
CD-RW	24x
BD-ROM	-
CD-ROM	-
DVD-ROM SL	-
DVD-ROM DL	-