Pioneer's Blu-ray burner reviewed, comes out looking good

We can complain all we want about the price or the delays or the format war in general, but it all comes down performance for people who are actually going to be picking up Blu-ray burners like Pioneer's BDR-101A, which seems to come out a champ in PC Word's tests at least. Write speeds are at 45 minutes to fill a single 25GB BD-R disc at the 2X max burring speed, and while you could get that much data onto multiple single-layer DVD R discs with an 18x burner, it gives 10X double-layer DVD R burning a run for its money. The actual throughput for the burner clocks in at 67mbps, compared to the theoretical maximum of 72mbps for 2X BD-R. It actually took a bit longer to copy the data back off the disc. While the BDR-101A can manage a bit of DVD burning, at less than optimum speeds, there's no room left for a third laser for CD reading or writing. PC World also found the software package a bit thin, as this product is definitely targeted at professionals who have their own authoring solutions. Luckily, third party support isn't far behind, and an upgrade should be available to purchasers of the BDR-101A in order to author you own discs. The burner will also play Blu-ray movies, whenever they arrive on shelves, but it won't support the forthcoming managed content spec.

[Balls @ May 1st 2006 7:25PM]

Awesome.

Can't wait for higher capacity disks, and faster drives.

[Nukes and Candy @ May 1st 2006 7:28PM]

Nice capacity, but speed are on the "downlow" if you catch my drift.

I'll wait and see what HD DVD has in store for us, overly impulsive consumer, before going to stores.

Alexander Wunderlich.

[duke @ May 1st 2006 8:58PM]

great news, engadget.

but only fools rush in for buying them now.. I remember getting my first cd burner, 12x priced at $50, that was a wonderful time.. but just two weeks later 32x burner came out, and at even less cost than mine.. probably you all have some similar experience with thest tech gadgets, i would not jump in for this.. not until i see third gen coming out...

Peace

[kelly @ May 1st 2006 9:15PM]

I Love this site. In my liste, you got the upper hand. you have the right informations at the right time. Just keep your fire burning.

[Murc @ May 1st 2006 9:24PM]

#3, my first cd burner was a 4x external one, that costed around $200. I learned quickley to wait, I just got a dvd burner a few months ago. I dont plan One getting a next-gen one for at least 2 years.

[GOD @ May 1st 2006 9:29PM]

will it burn multi-layer Blu-ray discs when they come out?

[Tucker @ May 1st 2006 10:42PM]

It's great to see that we're actually advancing in the speed of burnable media. DVDs take so long to burn but this looks like it might gain the upper-hand if it is released soon!

[cycomachead @ May 1st 2006 10:47PM]

whats the price for this and its media (single layer)
no I'll actually wait for the 8 layer drive to burn those 2oo gb disks

[EatingPie @ May 1st 2006 10:48PM]

I have tons of 15-20GB files, and they are a NIGHTMARE to burn onto DVDs. I finally got sick of it and have multiple copies on lots different drives. Bad way to do it, but man 4-5 DVDs per file sucks!

This is one reason I'm very excited about BD.

Oh, and if you're waiting for HD-DVD-Rs, there ain't nuttin' even in the pipeline I hate to say. Blu-Ray, however, was designed to be Read/Write up-front, which is why we've got these drives BEFORE the BD players.

-Pie

[nizzy1115 @ May 2nd 2006 12:08AM]

Interesting, it cant burn cd's...i wonder if they can fit this some where later? otherwise cd burners are going to be around a bit longer...

[Robotron @ May 2nd 2006 12:39AM]

My first burner was a 2X Yamaha CD-R. Cost $700 and it died one day after the warranty expired.
Being young and dumb I bought a faster burner (4X Yamaha CD-RW) for $700 and it died one week after the warranty expired.

So what did I learn? WAIT!
Drives will drop in price and so will the media.

[lettcco @ May 2nd 2006 5:46AM]

won't be buying any HD-DVD or BR-D drive until someone cracks the encryption on one of those bay boys.

And I bet ya that's the one that's going win the war.

[antaeus @ May 2nd 2006 8:53AM]

Ne Freedman you'r a jackhole please don't say stuff like that without the proper info.

[MrFloppy @ May 2nd 2006 12:50PM]

Totally OffTopic, but...
Any news on the HVD Cards?

[d00d @ May 2nd 2006 1:10PM]

#11... from your troubles I would have learned something different: "dont buy Yamaha burners" hehehe...

Seriously tho, the first CD-burners were very very easy to break... the same was not true to DVD burners (altho it was true for the first few DVD readers; which seemed to have a tendency to not read CDs properly)

And back into the topic, I would also not buy the first few drives, even if I was into wasting money; media will be ridiculously expencive and the overall drive quality is sure to increase greatly once the new medias become standard.

[EatingPie @ May 2nd 2006 2:17PM]

>>. I've heard that even though these drives could play
>> both formats (Blu and HD-DVD), Sony forces licensees
>> to sign exclusive deals so their drives can't play
>> HD-DVD media... Could this be the next 'Betamax'?

This is a pretty severe rumor. In reality, the formats are wildly different enough that the companies that promised "Universal" drives have had trouble producing. Hopefully it will happen.

Note that there are Universal DVD-A and SACD drives... strong evidence against your license rumor. (Just Sony Hater talk??)

And, NO, not the next Betamax. This Pioneer drive is the reason: we have a 25GB read/write BD drive for COMPUTER DATA. Blu-Ray can lose the format war like they're French, but BD will very likely replace DVD-Rs as the backup medium of choice. Sony can still "win" even if they lose.

-Pie

[Sean @ May 2nd 2006 4:03PM]

This can't read or write CDs? I'll pass.

[Karl Viklund @ May 2nd 2006 8:59PM]

Realy nice.
Will realy pick one up when the price goes down a bit and the speed is a little bit better then the first generation. I guess the second version. Blu-ray realy looks good. I don't like Sony like alot of you out there but I will realy pick up a Blu-Ray burner later.

[MuDoggy @ May 3rd 2006 5:57PM]

Everyone should stay away from these Pioneer burners unless they still want to have multiple drives to do things. I work for a company who has blu-ray technology, and we have the Panasonic drive, the Panasonic can not only read/write DVD (and DVD-RAM) and Blu-ray but it can read/write CD's as well.

This excuse that there is no room for a CD laser is probably true, and thats why Panasonic uses whats called a "two-wave" laser that handles both the DVD and CD read/write with a single laser. This makes the drive able to have both Blu-ray, DVD, and CD. It's clearly better than this Pioneer.