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Sony BWU-100A detail information

Posted by agent009
Posted on 26/06/07 06:17
Number of views 20637
Manufacturer Sony
Product Sony BWU-100A
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BD R and BD RE writing quality

BD-RE writing

Rewritable Blu-ray discs are supported by Windows Vista without any additional drivers.

On our Windows Vista machine, we started with a blank BD-RE disc, right-clicked on its drive icon and selected 'Erase this disc':


BD-RE disc menu

Erasing the disc took only a few seconds:


BD-RE disc erased

Once erased, BD-RE appeared as one of the available drives:


BD-RE disc as a blank Windows drive

Next, we right-clicked on the drive icon, selected 'Format', specified a volume name and selected the only filesystem available, UDF 2.5:


BD-RE disc formatted (step 1 of 4)


BD-RE disc formatted (step 2 of 4)


BD-RE disc formatted (step 3 of 4)


BD-RE disc formatted (step 4 of 4)

A few seconds later, we had a new volume ready to be used:


BD-RE disc as a formatted Windows drive


BD-RE disc properties

Files could be copied to and from BD-RE, as with any other volume:


Copying files to BD-RE

As you may have noticed, effective copy speed is only 3.7 MB/s, a little under 1x in BD terms. This is due to verification being enabled by the operating system. While slow, this copying process provides reliability similar to DVD-RAM at a speed roughly equivalent to 8x DVD-RAM writing with verification.

BD-R writing quality

In the tests below, we will explore BD-R writing speed and quality of Sony BWU-100A with media from several manufacturers.

Sony 2x BD-R


Sony 2x BD-R
(Thanks to Sony Electronics Inc. for providing this media)


Media information


Disc creation test


Transfer rate test


Disc scan test

A trouble-free burn, correctly read back.

Memorex 2x BD-R


Memorex 2x BD-R
(Thanks to Memorex USA for providing this media)


Media information


Disc creation test


Transfer rate test


Disc scan test

Another trouble-free burn.

Verbatim 2x BD-R


Verbatim 2x BD-R
(Thanks to Verbatim USA for providing this media)


Media information


Disc creation test


Transfer rate test


Disc scan test

This media has performed perfectly.

Panasonic 2x BD-R


Panasonic 2x BD-R


Media information


Disc creation test


Transfer rate test


Disc scan test

The same perfect performance.

Imation 2x BD-R


Imation 2x BD-R


Media information


Disc creation test


Transfer rate test


Disc scan test

The fifth, and last, trouble-free burn.

Summary

Sony BWU-100A is a reliable BD-R writer, producing good results with five types of BD-R media we tested.

BD-RE writing quality

In the tests below, we will explore BD-RE writing speed and quality of Sony BWU-100A with media from several manufacturers.

Sony 2x BD-RE


Sony 2x BD-RE
(Thanks to Sony Electronics Inc. for providing this media)


Media information


Disc creation test


Transfer rate test


Disc scan test

A trouble-free burn, correctly read back.

Memorex 2x BD-RE


Memorex 2x BD-RE
(Thanks to Memorex USA for providing this media)


Media information


Disc creation test


Transfer rate test


Disc scan test

Another media works perfectly.

Verbatim 2x BD-RE


Verbatim 2x BD-RE
(Thanks to Verbatim USA for providing this media)


Media information


Disc creation test


Transfer rate test


Disc scan test

Verbatim media is supposed to work well, and it does.

Imation 2x BD-RE


Imation 2x BD-RE


Media information


Disc creation test


Transfer rate test


Disc scan test

Another media type works fine.

Maxell 2x BD-RE


Maxell 2x BD-RE


Media information


Disc creation test


Transfer rate test


Disc scan test

Ten discs down, not a single problem.

Summary

Sony BWU-100A is a reliable BD-RE writer, producing good results with all five types of BD-RE media we tested.

Want to submit your own review? Click here
Reactions on this item
"handles all optical media"

except HDDVD perhaps :S
Good point!

Unfortunately, 1x HD-DVD burners are just beginning to appear this summer [in notebooks], so HD-DVD burning has been no more than a theoretical possibility even though HD-DVD-R and -RW media has been out for months.

Toshiba's SD-H903A 1x HD-DVD burner is awfully late for a product launched/unveiled six months ago. They better hurry. You know: train... leaving the station... :)
why even bother, over a year has gone by and blu-ray has been pumping out 2x burners and now 4x, later 6x, and hd-dvd will finally have 1x and barely be able to store 15GB.... why?? 15GB?? come on, seems so last-gen, 50GB's where its at.
Hey Agent009, I like your review. Good to see some opinions here and there about the burns, which I agree with more than I usually do.

Just wondering if that benQ you used for scanning is a rebadged liteon? If it's genuine benQ, I wonder why you didn't use cdspeed for scanning + jitter, it would be nice to see how good the jitter was on some of those discs that had ridiculously low error levels (MCC003 in particular) :)
"Just wondering if that benQ you used for scanning is a rebadged liteon? If it's genuine benQ, I wonder why you didn't use cdspeed for scanning + jitter, it would be nice to see how good the jitter was on some of those discs that had ridiculously low error levels (MCC003 in particular)"

DW1680 is a MediaTek/Lite-On design [otherwise KProbe wouldn't have worked with it], equivalent to LH-16A1P.

We use KProbe for quality testing to keep reviews consistent, but you are right, CD-DVD Speed does provide more quality data.

In BWU-100A DVD+R burns, jitter is pretty low. It usually averages 9% +-0.4% when measured by either BenQ or Lite-On drives.
BD-R discs are 24.2GB unlike BD-RE which are 25GB? Why's that?
"BD-R discs are 24.2GB unlike BD-RE which are 25GB? Why's that?"

I believe this is the way CD-DVD Speed reports capacities.

25,025,xxx,xxx bytes is the so-called 'gross' BD-RE capacity before 12,288 clusters are allocated for the inner spare area (ISA0).

The same number of 64 KB clusters is lost with BD-R as well, but the 24,220,xxx,xxx number reported for BD-R is the 'net' capacity.

In both cases, usable space ends up being the same 24,220,xxx,xxx bytes.
Whoah only 15GB?? - i didn't know that.
Havent payed much attention yet as its still sorta early to consider using anything newer than DVD as a cost effective measure..
But yeah, absolutely too small for next gen, which is sad because I hate sony and everything they are about.

btw nice writeup 009
Hi,

thanks for the review, I appreciate it, I was wondering if anybody here, maybe able to help me with a question, I am thinking of fitting one of these into a custom HTPC case. Is this the same same size dimensions as current DVD drives and also, does the front bezel remove easily as current drives, I need to remove to be able to fit the drive into my custom case, as long as it is standard sizeand the bezel comes off, I will be fine.

thanks for any feedback.
"Is this the same same size dimensions as current DVD drives and also, does the front bezel remove easily as current drives, I need to remove to be able to fit the drive into my custom case, as long as it is standard sizeand the bezel comes off, I will be fine."

Yes, the bezel is removable. It is held in place by plastic tabs, as with any other drive.

BWU-100A is a standard 5.25 inch drive that is 190 mm long. This is longer than usual and about the maximum length that 5.25 inch bays are designed for. It may be a tight fit in very small cases like Shuttle. I don't think you will have trouble fitting it in an HTPC case, but to be sure, measure the length of the drive bay.
I bought an oem bwu-100A on ebay a few months ago for under $500. It can only write BD-R and BD-RW at 1x. Several people in cyberspace mentioned that because of the "write verify" turned on at the hardware level and Nero doesn't have an option to turn it off. Though Imgburn has the option, it doesn't support the INCD UDF format Nero is using. It seems that new drives like that in this review doen't have the problem. I just wish Sony can release a firmware update to solve this problem.
"I bought an oem bwu-100A on ebay a few months ago for under $500. It can only write BD-R and BD-RW at 1x. Several people in cyberspace mentioned that because of the "write verify" turned on at the hardware level and Nero doesn't have an option to turn it off. Though Imgburn has the option, it doesn't support the INCD UDF format Nero is using. It seems that new drives like that in this review doen't have the problem. I just wish Sony can release a firmware update to solve this problem."

...is this true? BD-R at 1x? Is this only on the OEM version? I am also looking at a (retail) version from ebay and wondering if anyone else had same experiences... thx
It seems that there are two different versions on the market. According to the CNET review, "Burning a BD-R with 23GB of mixed data files took 1 hour, 40 minutes, 11 seconds.". NOT 45 minutes in the review here.

http://reviews.cnet.com/dvd-drives/sony-bwu-100a-blu/4505-3212_7-31899197.html
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