With OEMs LG and Pioneer No Longer Manufacturing Drives

[Blu-Shield]

I just found this post by asmcom, which confirms that HL-DT-ST has stopped manufacturing their highest-quality SKUs, but is still manufacturing the lower-quality ones. I suspect that HL-DT-ST is simply abusing their newfound monopoly (after Pioneer's withdrawal), to manufacture cheap low-quality components, while selling them at Pioneer's prices.

[DennisOlof]

Even if LG has not pulled out of the optical market for BluRay and DVD burners they are not saying anything about it. I am sure they have stopped production for now to let current stock run dry or get low before they do another production run. It is not like the demand is sky high for optical burners, and because they have a monopoly now the price is probably going up. The question is if they will bring up the quality as well or just make more money on the same crappy hardware.

[boguslecina]

I think that as long as Verbatim wants to produce recordable discs, there is a chance for larger one-off productions for Verbatim for their external drive enclosures. There are no recordable media without drives. At the moment, there is still some stock on the market, but when the product becomes more niche and harder to find, Verbatim may place an order for the production of a larger series of drives. Of course, anything can happen, but as long as Verbatim is still on the market, there is hope.