Introduced in Japan around mid-September, the BR-X816U2 external Blu-Ray burner from Buffalo has started to become available in the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) retail. The drive has a USB 2.0 connection interface, 4MB of buffer memory, it provides maximum write speeds of 8x for BD-R/-R DL, 2x for BD-RE/-RE DL, 16x for DVD-R/+R, 8x for DVD+RW, 6x for DVD-RW, 5x for DVD-RAM, 4x for DVD-R/+R DL, 32x for CD-R and 24x for CD-RW, and is bundled with a CyberLink software suite which includes PowerDirector, PowerProducer, PowerDVD, Power2Go, PowerBackup, InstantBurn and MediaShow.

"More and more people are expecting to watch their favourite films in high definition quality and more PCs and televisions are now supporting this," said Paul Hudson, Northern European Sales Director, Buffalo Technology. "This new external Blu-ray drive provides consumers with a low-cost option for watching their own high definition content and taking advantage of the latest technology."

The BR-X816U2 has a recommended price tag of $339.99 / £189.99.