A slimmer version of Samsung's series of optical disc drives, due next July, will connect directly to digital cameras and will enable faster burns of multimedia content than internal PC drives, the manufacturer told BetaNews today.

NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) -- In an interview with BetaNews during an invitees-only press event here today, Richard Aguilera, Samsung's national sales manager for optical storage, told us that the company's next round of external TruDirect drives (model SE-T084M) will let consumers burn videos, photos, and music in a fraction of the time it would take for them to burn content onto a PC's hard drive.

Consumers will be able to burn 4.1 gigabytes from a one-hour stream of full quality DVD video -- for instance, directly from a camcorder -- in just 30 minutes, Aguilera promised, as opposed to the 1:05 minutes a typical PC drive requires. On a PC, he said, there's pre-mastering, multiplexing, and buffering that takes place in burning applications, that don't have to take place with a TruDirect connection. All the consumer needs to do is attach the cable both ways, press Play on the camera, and Record on the TruDirect drive.

In a laudable design move, the new TruDirect will use slot loading as opposed to a rollout tray, for easier manipulation by consumers when they're on the go. Pricing for the device is expected to start at $149 MSRP.