Reviews of Most Popular Blu-Ray Disc Burners
Blu-ray discs are becoming very popular day by day and the day is not far when the blu-ray disc will completely replace DVDs and CDs and dominate optical storage industry. Blu-ray is the next generation optical media! It is widely used in storing high definition movies and Sony PS3 games. It has a storage capacity of 25 GB on a single layered disk and 50 GB on a dual layered disk. Even though the discs are similar to the size of regular DVDs, the increased storage capacity is due to the usage of 405 nm laser light as opposed to 650 nm laser light used by DVDs. There was great deal of completion (format war) between HD DVDs and blu-ray discs, but finally blu-ray emerged as a champion and the format war ended.
Pioneer BDR-2203 8x Blu-ray Disc Writer: Pioneer is one of the trusted names when it comes to consumer electronics. Pioneer has been providing optical storage devices and now the company is taking up blu-ray drives seriously. Pioneer has recently launched Pioneer BDR-2203 – first 8x blu-ray disc burner. It is arguably one of the fastest blu-ray disc writers available that can read/write at 2X BD-RE, 8X BD recordable dual layered and 8X BD recordable. It is backward compatible and reads/writes CDs and DVDs. It has a 4MB buffer and can access an BD ROM in less than 250 ms. The drive is capable of reading and writing on to different DVD formats at a speed ranging from 16X-5X.There is buffer under run prevention technology installed on to the drive. The cost of this drive is around $250.All in all, it is a good disc burner.
LG BH08LS20 Super Multi Blue Blu-ray Disc Rewriter: LG BH08LS20 is one of the fastest blu-ray disc burners from LG. The drive works at a speed of 8X on most of the blu-ray optical media and 2X on rewritable discs. It has a buffer size of 8X and equipped with light scribe labeling technology from HP. The amazing thing is that the drive is capable of writing both on single layered and dual layered discs at 8X! It takes just less than 13 minutes to fill a disc of 25 MB. This drive is backward compatible and supports the various CDs and DVDs. It is also equipped with buffer underrun technologies to prevent burning errors. In addition, you get a software bundle from Cyberlink. The drive is affordable and it may cost around $220.
Lite-On iHES208 8x Blu-ray Combo Drive: Lite-on IHES208 is the first 8x blu-ray combo drive from Lite-on. It supports wide varieties of formats including DVD±R DL, DVD RAM, DVD RW and reads / writes them at a speed ranging from 6X-16X. It also comes with SmartWrite, OverSpeed and light Scribe technology for disc labeling from HP. The drive comes with SATA connection and hence the installation is very easy. Reading and writing speed for blu-ray discs are impressive. The drive has a buffer capacity of 2 MB. In addition, SmartWrite and OverSpeed takes care while burning and avoids burning errors. You can get the disc drive for $115.
BWU 300S Blu-ray Disc Writer from Sony: This is a disc drive that made some news after it was launched few months ago. It is a third generation 8X blu-ray disc writer from Sony. The drive can write BD-R and BD-R at a speed of 8X and burn BD-RE at a speed of 2X. BMU-300 S is equipped with a buffer size of 8MB and it is compatible with various CD and DVD formats. This drive comes with a fully featured software bundle from Cyberlink. Burning speed of the devices especially CDs and rewritable CDs is impressive. The device is capable of burning CDs at 48X and CD-RW at 24X.Sony Power Burn Technology backups the buffer and prevents burn error or buffer underrun errors. The only drawback is the price tag- it is very expensive and costs over $400.
Buffalo MediaStation™ 8x External Blu-ray Writer – This is another blu-ray writer that offers 8X read and write speed on blu-ray discs. The disc writer is compatible with various DVD and CD formats. This is an external blu-ray device that can be connected through SATA connection. MediaStation can read/write DVDs in a speed range of 4X-16X and CDs at 24X-40X. It comes with two ports – one USB and another eSata.
There are plenty of models available and depending on your requirements and your budget, you can take a decision.