Blu-ray writers have been available for over a year now, but when we looked at them just over a year ago even the cheapest cost a stratospheric $1000. Today, prices have plummeted, and an ever-expanding range of high-definition movies makes Blu-ray an increasingly attractive option.
The cheapest HD drive we’ve found is the Pioneer BDC-S02. This forgoes Blu-ray-writing capabilities to keep its price to a very reasonable $212, although it still reads both single and dual-layer Blu-ray discs and successfully played every Blu-ray movie we threw at it. DVD-writing capabilities are underwhelming, though: single-layer DVDs write at a maximum of 12x, which we found translated to 7mins 15secs for a DVD+R and seven minutes flat for a full DVD-R. Dual-layer discs are limited to 4x – a tedious burn time of 27 minutes. If your priority is watching Blu-ray movies then speedy DVD-writing isn’t crucial, but it’s still a limited drive.
For an extra $300, you can move up to the Pioneer BDR-202BK, which adds Blu-ray-writing capabilities. In our tests, it filled a 25GB single-layer BD-R disc in under 24 minutes at maximum speed, while a rewritable single-layer BD-RE disc took 47 minutes. Disappointingly, although the BDR-202BK can read dual-layer 50GB discs, it can’t write to them. DVD-write speeds were as slow as from the BDC-S02.
The LG GGW-H20L, meanwhile, offers both Blu-ray-writing and HD DVD-playback for $580 (you’ll be able to pick up some bargain HD DVD titles now they’re on their way out – web ID: 103869). It also outdoes its competitors in several ways. First, it can write to dual-layer BD-R discs. With current 2x media, it took an hour to half-fill a 50GB disc, but the drive is capable of 4x writing, so expect that to halve once high-speed discs are available. For single-layer BD-R discs, LG claims a 6x write speed, and we were able to fill a 25GB disc in 21mins 19secs. Writing to DVD was quicker than with Pioneer’s drives, the drive filling a DVD+R in just under six minutes and a DVD+RW in just over seven minutes. Writing to dual-layer discs took an unremarkable 27 minutes, though.
Of course, if you’re not building an HD-capable PC and aren’t planning to author your own HD discs, there’s little reason to choose any of these three drives. A dedicated DVD writer will write discs much faster for less than $100.
The LG GSA-H55N uses the older IDE interface, rather than SATA as employed by all the other drives here, but this doesn’t hinder its performance. Single-layer DVD-Rs were dispatched in just over four-and-a-half minutes, and even dual-layer discs took little over 13 minutes. Considering the $55 asking price, we were impressed to find a copy of Nero Express included in the package, along with a basic DVD authoring package and CyberLink’s PowerDVD.
If a SATA interface is more convenient, the Samsung SH-S203B is a fine alternative. It’s less than $10 more than the LG drive, but performance is similar. Writing single-layer DVDs was a little slower than the LG drive, with DVD+Rs taking 5mins 40secs and DVD-Rs taking just over five minutes. Dual-layer discs completed burning just past the 13-minute mark. With disc-authoring, video-authoring and media-playback software included as standard.
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| Write Speeds. Click to enlarge. |
ConclusionIf you want to make cheap, fast data backups, DVD is still the format to beat. With even the cheapest write-once Blu-ray discs working out at around $1 a gigabyte, Blu-ray has a long way to go before it becomes a viable medium for anything other than HD video authoring.
If you’re building a media-centre PC or fancy watching HD movies on your LCD, however, LG’s GGW-H20L brings HD DVD and Blu-ray playback into the realms of affordability.
1 Pioneer BDR-202BK
$512
www.megaware.com.au
overall
4/6
2 LG GGW-H20L
$580
www.shoppingsquare.com.au
overall
5/6
3 Pioneer BDC-S02
$212
www.sltech.com.au
overall
3/6
4 Samsung SH-S203B (SATA)
$62
www.pcsol.com.au
overall
5/6
5 LG GSA-H55N (IDE)
$55
www.i-store.com.au
overall
5/6