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Sony BWU-200S Blu-ray Rewritable Drive Review

Sony BWU-200S detail information

Posted by Kip R.
Posted on 12/01/08 05:13
Number of views 15259
Manufacturer Sony
Product Sony BWU-200S
Description Internal Blu-ray Disc Rewritable Drive
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DVD+R DL/ R DL Writing performance

 

DVD+R/-R Double Layer writing performance and quality

The Sony BWU-200S supports the DVD+R DL/-R DL standard for writing Double Layer/Dual Layer discs with a size around 8.5 GB at a writing speed of 4X. 

Testing procedure:

We created an ISO Image from a pre-authored DVD-Video compliant file set, with a total on-disc size of nearly 8.5GB. We then wrote this image file using Nero Burning ROM 8. Below are the results:

DVD+R DL

Auto Book Type to DVD-ROM

Disc Quality Scan at 4X with Lite-on Drive

TRT with BenQ DW-1650

The Sony BWU-200S performed nicely with this media.

DVD-R DL

As we mentioned above the Sony BWU-200S is capable of writing DVD-R DL discs at 8X. You will see those results below:

Disc Quality Scan at 4X with Lite-on Drive

TRT with BenQ DW-1650

Result is good with this verbatim media.

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I have owned this burner for about a week and a half. So far, so good - no coasters burned yet. A good thing with blank media at $15-20USD. My Panasonic DMP-BD10 home player has no problems playing home HD videos burned with the Sony burner.

Check out your player's format capability before burning any discs with any BD burner. Some players (like my Panny) will play only BDMV format; some players will play BDAV. This burner will burn either, but some burning software won't support BDAV. I am using Ulead Movie Factory with the HD add-in; it will burn either format.

Others have noted that the Sony's drawer won't fit thru a normal cutout - that was the situation with my Dell XPS400. Tried trimming out the hole in the Dell; gave up and mounted the burner in an external enclosure.

Overall, thumbs up even at the $600USD price.
Harry, what is the enclosure that you use, please?
hmm, as in most of Kip's reviews there are no pictures of the inside of the drive, which in my opinion tells us a lot more about the technology used inside. Not at all interested in how the left and right side of the drive looks like. :c
Only $500 more to go until it's affordable.
Cheaper per gigabyte to get an HDD and download x264 rips ;)
Ouch! $600, well. it IS a blue ray drive after all.. Yes dvds were crazy expensive too in their day.. but then again the format war is in the midst of Gettysburg battle. So it won't be long before one camp caves in.. and popularity forces price redux.
"Harry, what is the enclosure that you use, please?"

It is actually a cannabilized external one for a DVD drive. External 5.25" SATA enclosures are a little hard to find and are well over $50 when you do. I had to run a power cable and SATA cable out of the back of the PC and the back of the external enclosure. The enclosure I use has a power switch that is not maintained and the PC showed drive not available when booting if the power was not on. So, I ran an cable from the PC power supply. Kinda junky doing it that way, but it works.
The LG GGW-H20L is selling for about $400 on ebay. It can write BD-R at 6x though 6x media seems not available yet. I tried TDK BD-R 25GB 2x certified media using the bundled software power2go. It was recognized as 4x by the software and finished writing a full disc in about 25 minutes. The above review didn't mention TDK BD-R. I wonder how BWU200S would perform with this media.
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