Sony BWU-200S Blu-ray Rewritable Drive Review

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Author

KIPPER
Retired Moderator & Reviewer
Article posted 12 Jan 08 05:13

Conclusion

Positive:

  • Writes BD-R media at 4X
  • Writes BD-RE and BD-R DL media at 2X
  • Writes both DVD+R and DVD-R media at 16X
  • Writes DVD+RW media at 8X
  • Writes DVD-RW media at 6X
  • Reads DVD+R/-R media at 16X
  • Reads DVD +R/-R DL media at 6X
  • Has a 8MB buffer
  • Very Good to Excellent CD-R writing quality
  • Substantial Software Bundle from CyberLink
  • Supports Bitsetting for DVD+R and DVD+R DL media
  • Attractive design

Negative: 

  • Expensive

 

Conclusion:

 

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

The Sony second generation Blu-ray Disc ReWritable drive takes a giant leap forward in recording speed, now capable of 4X BD-R recording.  BD-R/RE discs can store up to 50GB of video, music, or data on a single-sided disc and can be played back on Blu-ray Disc compatible players and drives.  Also markedly improved is the DVD recording speeds. Now at up to 16X for DVD±R discs. 

The BWU-200S supports virtually all BD/DVD/CD formats.  So it eliminates the need to have multiple drives in a system.  The internal drive sports a Serial ATA interface (SATA) for easy installation and includes a complete software bundle from CyberLink for recording and playing Blu-ray Discs, DVDs, and CDs too, truly making the BWU-200S a Blu-ray Disc burner like no other.

Unfortunately the Sony BWU-200S does not come with a small price tag; currently the suggested price as listed on the US Sony website as well as newegg.com for $599.00.

To sum it all up, this is what we would say: “The Sony BWU-200S is a well balanced 4X Blu-ray burner that also boasts 16x DVD±R recording with a SATA interface.  We therefore award the Sony BWU-200S drive with the CDFreaks’ Safe Buy Award". 

You may discuss/comment this review below or in this forum thread.

Thanks to

Verbatim USA – For providing the media used in this review.

Maxell USA – For providing the media used in this review.

Memorex USA – For providing the media used in this review.

 

ExtremeMhz   – For providing the Maxell 12x DVD-RAM media used in this review

Rima.com USA – For providing Taiyo Yuden media used in this review.

Advanced Media/Ritek-USA – For providing the media used in this review.

10 Comments

guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 13 Jan 08 00:29
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.
Coconut
Posts: 173
Posted on: 14 Jan 08 00:41
Harry, what is the enclosure that you use, please?
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 15 Jan 08 01:58
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
heroineworshipper
Posts: 41
Posted on: 15 Jan 08 02:23
Only $500 more to go until it's affordable.
DeadMan
Posts: 1629
Posted on: 18 Jan 08 01:43
Cheaper per gigabyte to get an HDD and download x264 rips
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 20 Jan 08 11:56
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.
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 20 Jan 08 22:53
"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.
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 08 Feb 08 05:56
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.
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 17 Jul 08 22:49
Does it work under 64-bit Windows (WinXP Pro x64 or Vista 64)?
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 18 Sep 08 10:46
Installed in my tower last night and Vista 64 had some issues with the software on installation. had to choose not to install parts of the package but once the rest were installed and upgraded the player for Blu-Ray commercial compatibility the rest of the software installed fine. no problems since then.

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