Positive:

• Can read BD-ROM/BD-R/RE at 5x reading speed
• Supports DVD-RAM read and write  at 5x
• Excellent/very good CD-R/RW writing quality.
• Excellent/very good DVD±R/RW writing quality.
• Excellent DVD±R DL writing quality.
• Supports BitSetting (BookType DVD-ROM) on DVD+R DL.
• Excellent build quality.
• Good software package.
• Near silent operation when playing back BD and DVD movies.

Negative:

• Slow reading and writing of CD-R/DVD media by today’s standards
• Doesn’t support BitSetting for DVD+R/RW
• Single coloured LED for read/write.

Conclusion:

Let us summarize the most important positive and negative points below:

The main positive points:

The Pioneer BDC-S02BK in being a BD combo, is a very interesting drive and probably aimed at the user who has no need to be able to burn BD discs, but perhaps would like the possibility to be able to play Blu-ray movies on their PC and at the same time, have the ability to write on CD and DVD recordable media.

The Pioneer BDC-S02BK was able to burn all our tested CD-R/RW media with excellent/very good quality.

DVD±R/RW writing quality was also of a very high standard and on most media very good/excellent.

DVD±R DL writing quality was excellent with our tested media and BitSetting was also supported on DVD+R DL media with BookType set to DVD-ROM.

The inclusion of DVD-RAM read and write is also very useful and adds to the drive’s appeal.

The CyberLink BD Solution software bundle should provide a good starting point for owners of the Pioneer BDC-S02BK. Blu-ray movie playback via PowerDVD using an HDCP compliant screen is excellent.

The Pioneer BDC-S02BK’s build quality is also excellent. The drive has a solid feel and is fairly heavy. The eject tray has a nice firm feel to it. The drive is also quiet and almost completely silent when playing back Blu-ray or DVD movies.

The main negative points:

There are not many negative things to say about the Pioneer BDC-S02BK. Our only real gripe is CD/DVD performance. The drive is slow in both reading and writing to CD and DVD recordable media. But we would like to add, no slower and indeed faster than many other BD drives in this department.

We would also like to see different coloured LED’s being used for read/write.

To sum up, this is what we would say:

“The Pioneer BDC-S02BK is a very interesting drive and does exactly what Pioneer claims it can do. Another very good effort from Pioneer”.

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Introduction