Other World Computing (OWC) has introduced the Mercury Pro DVD-R/RW, CD-R/RW FireWire solutions. They’re the first external FireWire solutions that let you author and burn DVDs using Apple’s DVD authoring tool, iDVD, according to Larry O’Connor, president of OWC.
The OWC hardware supports iDVD, but doesn’t include it with the drive. The Mercury Pro drive also works with DVD Studio Pro, iTunes, Roxio Toast, CharisMac Discribe, as well as many other CD/DVD authoring titles.
The Mercury Pro plug-and-play drives are compatible with both Mac and Windows machines and feature a Pioneer DVR-104 drive mechanism, built-in headphone jack, and power eject. Each drive comes with five pieces of DVD-R 2x media, 25 pieces of CD-R media, one piece of CD-RW media and all connecting cables.
The Mercury Pro DVD-R/RW, CD-R/RW writes to industry standard 4.7GB DVD-R discs at up to 2x speeds, 4.7GB DVD-RW discs at 1x, up to 700MB CD-R discs at 8x, and up to 700MB CD-RW discs at 4x speed.
A FireWire version of the Mercury Pro DVD-R/RW, CD-R/RW is US$399.95; a FireWire/USB 2.0 version is also available for $429.95. Both drives are available through OWC. If you bought any OWC Mercury DVD-R/RW, CD-R/RW solution before July 29, OWC is offering a software package that includes the iDVD support and additional DVD authorizing software for $29.