Pioneer BDR-101A review

There are two competing successors to DVD: Blu-ray and HD-DVD. However, Blu-ray writers have arrived on the market first, and Pioneer's BDR-101A is the first Blu-ray writer we've seen.

The BDR-101A can record to both single-layer 25GB write-once (BD-R) and rewriteable Blu-ray discs (BD-RE) at 2X; however, the usable capacity is only 22GB. This drive cannot write the 50GB double-layer Blu-ray discs, though. Even so, the single-layer discs compare favourably with HD-DVD, which has only 15GB media. Oddly, the BDR-101A took almost 15 minutes longer - one hour and three minutes - to fill a rewriteable disc than a write-once disc, which was completed in 46 minutes and 44 seconds. For BD-R discs, this works out as a transfer rate of 8.03MB/s or a Blu-Ray speed of 1.8X, which is close to the drive's quoted 2X performance. To put this in context, 8.03MB/s is equivalent to 6X DVD speed. As you can see, when compared to how fast DVD writers can burn data, the speed isn't that impressive.

While the drive can write to all DVD formats, we were disappointed by the performance. The scores were what we'd expect from a portable DVD writer, not an expensive drive using the latest optical technology. The strangest thing about the drive is that it doesn't support CDs. This means you have to use another optical drive for your CDs and, preferably, reading and writing DVDs, too. This is fine if you've got a tower case with the space for two drives, but if you've got a mini PC with a single optical drive bay, the BDR-101A is no use.

We were unable to test with our usual recording software, Nero 7, as it only supports 1X burning of Blu-ray discs. Instead, we used the included copy of Roxio's DigitalMedia 7, which isn't as easy to use and has fewer features, but does support the drive's full 2X burning speed.

Squeezing 25GB on to a DVD-sized disc is impressive, but currently there aren't a lot of uses for Blu-ray discs. You won't be able to share your data, since most people won't have a Blu-ray drive. Video professionals wanting to author high-definition video will find there aren't any Blu-ray set-top players available to test their creations, or much choice in Blu-ray video-authoring software.

Blu-ray discs are also expensive, costing around £15 each or 68p per usable gigabyte; DVDs can be bought for as little as 25p each or 5p per gigabyte. The BDR-101A is expensive, too. You can buy it for £50 less without the software, but then you'll have no way to write to discs, making this option pointless.

The sheer cost of the drive, the expense of the media and the fact that you'll have problems sharing discs with others means we can't recommend the BDR-101A. We suggest you stick with DVD for now. Asus' DRW-1608P2S is a good bet. It's worth waiting for the prices of Blu-ray drives and media to fall; it's also worth waiting to see if Blu-ray or HD-DVD becomes the prevalent standard

Author: Alan Lu