The First Blu-ray Burner, Pioneer's BDR-101A

mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech has a review of Pioneer's BDR-101A-- the first Blu-ray burner available. The drive can do anything with CDs, is kind of slow with DVDs, and doesn't support double-density Blu-ray media, but hey, it's a start, and can burn 25GB in 42 minutes. Check out its burn speed benchmark performance at the link above."

Can't read CD media?

[Danga]

Why did they leave that ability out? I know I don't want to have a separate drive to read CD's, but with this drive that is the only option. I can see phasing out CD's once this new generation of media is firmly in place but it is way too early to start phasing out CD's. Floppy disks somewhat recently just got phased out for Christ's sake. I don't see CD's going anywhere for at least 3 more years.

From the last flamefest...

[Frightening]

We have already established that Blu-Ray READERS are to be boycotted for the general public good. Why post an article about a BURNER when nobody is going to use the READERS? I mean, everybody reads and believes slashdot, right? Right?

Why bother?

[onyxruby]

Honestly, why bother?

Blu ray would have been relevant 4 years ago if it had been introduced then, but it wasn't. Instead it's been introduced in todays age when you can buy a 250 GB hard disk for less than $70 with ease. The disks for this will be like any other disk in that their effective lifecycle will just be a few years. Like any other burnable disk they will suffer from burn problems and very low reliability.

It doesn't price justify to buy this kind of media (nevermind the whole DRM bit). Your better off spending your money on hard drives, they hold significantly more data, are an order of magnitude cheaper and several orders of magnitude more durable. In all sincerity, why would you ever want to buy something like this?

Re:From the last flamefest...

[bsartist]

We have already established that Blu-Ray READERS are to be boycotted for the general public good.

I believe that has more to do with DRM-infested commercial releases than with the readers themselves.

Why post an article about a BURNER

Backups, distribution of free software, etc. There are plenty of uses for a new recordable optical media type that don't involve buying commercial DRM-infested discs.

Oh hell, who am I kidding? The real reason is right here [thepiratebay.org].

Re:Why bother?

[zippthorne]

Four years ago DVDs were still catching on, after about two decades of VHS. Now a new format is on the scene less than half a decade after DVD became dominant. The only thing we've really learned is that it's stupid to maintain your own personal video library, since everything's just going to have to be re-released in the new format anyway. so.. the real winners are netflix and people who like uncluttered furnishings.

Re:Can't read CD media?

[ivan256]

With the crap most CD copy protection does, and how quickly it burns through drives, I wouldn't want to put CDs in this thing... Hell, for $1000, I wouldn't do *anything* with it that I could do with a cheaper drive...

Re:Can't read CD media?

[ivan256]

Incidentally, you can get a CD burner for less than a Blu-Ray blank for this thing.

Re:Correction on CD disk capability

[chamilto0516]

Ha!...ok, I didn't do the math but I'm sure at some point it was said:

• A dollar a megabyte, you are crazy
• A dollar a gigabyte, you are going to be waiting a while

Just give it time :)

Re:Can't read CD media?

[Danga]

I don't care about it having the ability to write CD's, I do care about it having the ability to READ them though. This was clearly rushed to the market and a waste of money IMHO.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Incredible!

[eieken]

Lets look at all the FEATURES, shall we?

• $1000 price tag
• Can't do anything with regular CDs
• $19-$25 for one disc? Can you say Zip disk?
• Can't burn dual layer discs, although dual layer blu-ray discs are available, completely ASININE!
• "The drive includes Roxio Digital Media 7 for creating discs, but does not ship with software to watch Blu-ray movies." WTF?

Sounds like a winner to me!

Re:Wow

[CastrTroy]

I remember when we were all using 1x burners and we liked it. For the number of times you're going to have to back up 25 Gigs, this should be sufficient. If you want something faster, then back up to tape or hard disk or something.

Re:Can't read CD media?

[Danga]

Maybe they'll enable CD capabilities with a BIOS flash
I am not entirely sure but I think it would require a different laser, so a BIOS flash to support CD's may not be possible.

Why no love for DVD-RAM?
People exist who actually use DVD-RAM? I mean it has some advantages such as hardware verification of written data and the ability to be used similar to how a HD is used but because it is not highly supported and is pricey why not just buy an actual hard disk?

Re:Why bother?

[evilviper]

The only thing we've really learned is that it's stupid to maintain your own personal video library,

Not at all. VHS tapes aren't compatible with DVD players, however, Blu-ray and HD-DVD players are fully compatible with the DVD collection you already own.

In addition, these high-def formats are fundamentally different:

They are being introduced at the very start of a new TV technology (unlike DVDs, which were released at the END of NTSC TVs).

They provide the full resolution these new TVs can display (unlike VHS)

It's perfectly reasonable to assume HDTV will be the standard for the next 50+ years. Only 3D TV could require something new, and that's nowhere near the horizon.

Now that our home media has switched to digital (computer) standards, it's perfectly reasonable to assume backwards compatibility for many, many generations of formats to come.

There's absolutely no reason to re-buy your DVD library, thanks to backwards compatibility.

These technologies are just being introduced. Maybe they won't catch-on for a few years.

You're acting like you have to throw away all your DVDs RIGHT NOW.

Re:Can't read CD media?

[ivan256]

Something tells me that if you're so hard up for a drive *now* that you are willing to blow $1000, and not wait for cheaper, more feature rich drives, you're putting it in a system that is solely designed for BluRay authoring...

It is a bad precedent to set

What a load of crap. They're not setting a precedent... They're just getting their drive out the door before everybody else. The CD part of the firmware probably wasn't done, and leaving it out probably shaved days off the release.

If you don't understand it, it probably isn't aimed at you.

Re:Can't read CD media?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I would expect competing drives to offer it soon enough. I don't think it is to try to phase out CDs.

I think CD compatibility would require a tri-laser head, which exist but might not be production ready yet. CD/DVD burners are generally, one for each medium because each has its own optimal frequency. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are a third, significantly separated frequency from the other two.

Frankly, I don't see the problem. At that price, it is probably marketed as an authoring test drive or a very rich nerd toy. Many nerds and many media authors tend to have multiple optical drives anyway.

Re:Piffle

[PSXer]

Ah, but of course the problem with that: Sitting at the computer all day slowly inserting new discs. Granted, I do spend quite a bit of time in front of a computer, but it's irritating to constantly have "when will this one be done so I can put the next disc in" on your mind.