Vivastar Comes to the US, Announces DVD-R Drives

Vivastar is a Swiss company, new to both MACWORLD and the US market. Born in May 1997, they started in the DVD and CD recording media business. But now theyive decided to get into the DVD-R market with their own line of DVD-R recorders.

Their first model, the RS-121, is an external recorder with 1x/2x write performance, and 4x read performance. It sports an unusual, spaceship look, with blue and silver colors. It can store up to 4.7GB of data on a disc, and will have a retail price of $899. The second model, the RS-111, has specs identical to the RS-121, but will have a retail price of $799. Both units will support SCSI and FireWire interfaces.

Both drives can write the 4.7GB DVD-R media, and can also read 4.7GB DVD-R, DVD-Video and DVD-ROM discs. The drives should be available in August, 2001.