The format war has brought nothing but trouble in the movie industry. Partnerships dissolved while other alliances were formed. Despite the fact that the Blu-Ray format seems to have prevailed in the movie, audio and storage industry, the hardware manufacturers are not ready to call the HD DVD format dead yet. Many hardware developers are trying to include them both in their combo devices, in order to let users pick their preferred format.

The latest internal high-definition optical devices come from Plextor Europe, that has announced two new optical combo devices, the PX-B920SA CD/DVD/Blu-ray writer and HD DVD reader, as well as the PX-B300SA CD/DVD writer and Blu-ray/HD DVD reader.

The PX-B920SA can work with almost any optical medium on the market. It can write optical media at speeds of 40x/24x for CD-R/RW, and up to 16x/8x for DVD R/RW. The PX-B920SA can write BD-R/RE optical media at up to 4x/2x, while reading can reach speeds of up to 8x (maximum speeds are dictated by the desired format). Reading HD DVD media can be done at 3x speeds.

Plextor's PX-B920SA optical drive connects to the computer via a SATA interface that offers 4MB of buffer. The unit also features the Lightscribe technology that lets users print monochrome characters on the disc's special label surface using the unit's laser beam.

The second combo drive from Plextor, the PX-B300SA, can also work with CD and DVD media for either reading or writing, but it cannot write neither Blu-ray, nor HD-DVD media. The unit is more of a budget choice and doubles as a read-only device for Blu-ray and HD-DVD high-definition formats.

Just like the PX-B920SA, the drive connects via a SATA interface with 4 MB of buffer. The Lightscribe feature is also present, but this is more of a nice implementation than a feature that will boost sales. Both drives will hit the European market by the end of the month. The US market will have to wait some time until the products finally arrive there, since the company did not announce a launch date.