Review: Pioneer's First Blu-Ray Recorder Shines In The Lab

As a refresher, DVD discs can hold up to 4.7 Gbytes per layer, and each disc can have two layers per side. In contrast, Blu-ray discs can hold up to 25 Gbytes per layer, and single- and double-layer Blu-ray discs are already available.

Demand for the Blu-ray format is huge because DVD discs currently are not compatible with high-definition video and its 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. DVDs support a horizontal resolution of 480 lines maximum, but Blu-ray technology, developed by Sony, was initially designed to support 1,920 x 1,080. Blu-ray disc formats include BD for pre-recorded movies, BD-R (recordable) and BD-RE (rewritable).

With a price tag of $995, the Pioneer BDR-101A is aimed at professional users more than home users. But right now, the Pioneer drive is one of only two drives available now that can test, author or distribute high-definition Blu-ray content, which should pique interest in this drive. The internal 5.25-inch drive interfaces as an ATAPI device and can be installed vertically or horizontally. It comes bundled with TDK blank media and Sonic Solutions' Roxio DigitalMedia 7 that supports BD-R and BD-RE media.

The BDR-101A can read BD-ROM discs at 2x speed and can read and write single-layer BD-R and BD-RE discs at 2x. The drive reads DVD media at speeds between 6x and 8x and writes most DVD recordable formats at speeds ranging from 2x to 8x. The BDR-101A offers compatibility with dual- and double-layer DVD formats. Unfortunately, the drive is not compatible with double-layer Blu-ray discs, nor does it support CDs—and it would be very beneficial if it did. The ideal video production system therefore should include one Blu-ray drive along with an inexpensive DVD recorder. This will provide compatibility with all types of optical discs and data can be copied directly from CDs and DVDs to Blu-ray discs.

Note that data on a Blu-ray disc is packed more tightly than a DVD disc, and the BDR-101A's Blu-ray speed rating of 2x has nothing to do with its DVD speed ratings, which range from 2x to 8x. DVD drives run at a 1x speed of 10.8 Mbits per second (Mbps), or 1.35 Mbytes per second (MBps). But Blu-ray drives run at a 1x speed of 36 Mbps, or 4.5 MBps, and so the 2x BDR-101A has a data transfer rate of 72 Mbps, or 9 MBps.

CRN engineers tested the BDR-101A in a state-of-the-art system containing a 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor with 1 Gbyte of Kingston memory installed on an Intel D975XBX motherboard; it also contained a 750-Gbyte Seagate Barracuda hard drive. The Test Center first burned about 4.37 Gbytes, contained in two folders and 107 files, to a DVD-R disc, which the BDR-101A is rated to record on at 8x, or 10.8 MBps. The job started at 4.25x but finished at 8x and took a total of 10 minutes and 36 seconds to complete. The drive averaged a DVD-R record speed of 7.08 MBps, which is less than 6x, but still fast enough to avoid complaint.

Next, the engineers burned the same set of files to a BD-RE disc, which the Roxio DigitalMedia software recognized as having a total capacity of 23.1 Gbytes. The drive did the complete burn at 2x and finished in 9 minutes and 15 seconds. The drive averaged a BD-RE record speed of 8.11 MBps, which again is slower than its rating of 9 MBps but still fast enough.

Note that the BDR-101A records faster on Blu-ray media than it does on DVD media. This is a useful feature because Blu-ray discs hold at least five times as much data as DVD discs. Also note that BD-RE media is relatively expensive, costing roughly $20 for a single-layer disc.

Pioneer's BDR-101A Blu-ray recorder is one of only two Blu-ray recorders available right now. The other unit, Sony's BWU-100A, supposedly supports dual-layer 50-Gbyte Blu-ray discs and CDs and costs less (about $750). Test Center engineers will test the Sony drive as soon as possible.

The competing format to Blu-ray, called HD-DVD, is currently available in a few play-only units, but no PC recorders are available at this time.