Pioneer BDC-2202B 5x Blu-ray/DVD/CD Combo Drive (Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)Pioneer BDC-2202 this is currently the cheapest Blu-ray drive, but it does not burn Blu-ray discs. It burns DVDs and CDs only, and reads Blu-ray discs, DVDs, and CDs. For some people that may be enough, since Blu-ray burning is still impractically slow and expensive.
The drive requires serial ATA (SATA) interface, but does not come with a SATA cable, which you need to connect the drive to your motherboard.
Pioneer's web site has a list of compatible motherboards for this drive, which you may want to see before buying the drive. Mine is on the list, but I still had to update its SATA drivers before I can burn successfully.
Bundled software includes WinDVD 8 LE (which plays Blu-ray movie discs), Ulead VideoStudio 11 SE, and Ulead Burn.Now SE.
I tested with seven Blu-ray movie discs -- "Flightplan," "Memento," "Apocalypto," "Descent," "Basic Instincts," "The Untouchables," and "Dog Day Afternoon" -- and this drive played them all successfully on PowerDVD Ultra.
To play Blu-ray movies (and HD DVDs, for that matter), your PC needs to be fast enough and equipped with HDCP-compliant graphic card and monitor.
I can burn CDs and single layer DVDs with no problem. But I cannot burn dual layer DVD+R ("Matrix" brand bought from shop4tech), not even with Nero Buring Rom. I'll have to try other brands of media.
EDIT 8/11/09:
Last year I found 2 brands of dual-layer discs that I could burn with this drive:
Verbatim 95310 8.5 GB 2.4X Dual-Layer DVD+R, bought at Amazon, and
Matrix DVD+R Media 8.5G 8X Dual Layer Bulk (Item SKU: MATDL+R8X/B), bought at [...].

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LG Electronics 10X Blu-ray SATA Writer Drive with Software WH10LS30K - Bulk (Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)My systems in Win7-64. I replaced a CD reader drive with this LG unit. The swap-out was easy and the new drive worked perfectly the first time. When I installed the software that came with the CD it included an option to update the new drive's firmware. So I selected this and proceeded.
The firmware update program attempted to install new drivers for both the LG drive and my existing DVD-R/W drive. But the driver update failed because the drivers were not signed and Win7 requires signed drivers.
After that neither of my 2 optical drives worked. I had to do a System Restore to get them back.
I subsequently found out that Win7 has a boot option that allows you to bypass the requirement for signed drivers. This is the link to the page describing the fix:
[...]Just hit F8 when Windows is starting to get the boot option page.
By selecting the boot option I was able to successfully install all the software with no troubles. Rebooting afterwards got me back to normal Win7 with both drives working OK.
With this caveat I can recommend this drive for people wanting to create Blu-Ray disks. But it sure was a hassle finding the solution.

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LG Electronics WH12LS30 12X Blu-ray SATA Writer Drive - WH12LS30K Review

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(More customer reviews)Installed without any problems in a Windows 7 machine. Seems to burn DVDs and LightScribe labels just fine. I haven't tried Blu-rays yet.

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LG Super Multi Blue Review

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(More customer reviews)Best decision I made when doing my first PC build was to purchase this drive. I haven't had a problem with it and love its performance. I've burned CDs and DVD DL discs quickly. It was extremely easy to install. Windows 7 automatically installed the drivers. The Cyberlink software is simple to install and ready to go. It doesn't use up a lot of the system when burning either. I wanted a blu-ray drive to take advantage of the graphics on my PC, and this was most definitely the best choice.

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Atum SATA CD/DVD/Blu Ray Duplicator Controller (1 to 8) with Select Source Button Review

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(More customer reviews)Assembly couldn't be easier. SATA power plug, sata optical drive cables and sata connection to hard drive (optional)
Power it on, wait for it to boot. It ejects all the drives, load disk to be copied from and as many blanks as you have/need, close them, and it does the rest. Works great with a hard drive for making more copies than you have drives. The average burn time for full dvds has been 5.5 minutes (I've made about 60 dvds so far)
The only complaint I have is that the instructions (which are mostly flow charts of the menu layouts, with a few explanations) was devoid of any installation directions. I used the two blue sata jacks for the source drive and the hard drive.

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Samsung Blu-Ray Combo Internal 12X Readable and DVD-Writable Drive with Lightscribe SH-B123L/BSBP Review

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(More customer reviews)This Samsung Blu Ray Player / CD /DVD burner with Lightscribe is a very good drive.
Easy to install and easy to use.
I note another review that the box is supposed to include SATA cables and screws.
In my case they were not needed because I used the existing SATA cable and carrier.
The drive is great but be aware that you will need to purchase software
to view Blu Ray movies, the included software only plays DVD movies.
It includes the usual CD / DVD software for burning and playing.
The 12x BD read speed is nuch better than most drives and the blu ray movies play very smoothly.
Most of the other drives on Amazon are 8x or 10x

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LG Electronics 10X Internal SATA Blu-ray Disc Rewriter WH10LS30 (Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this drive to burn video blu-ray discs and watch movies. This is the best drive I have seen on the market at this point in time. It seems to be compatible with all discs (no coasters yet). The drive is quiet, easy to install (depends on your PC and knowledge of installing hardware), and easy to set up. The software to burn and watch movies is included. Mine came with a free BD-R to get started. Just make sure your PC has the correct hardware to handle HD or this drive is not for you.
Depending what video editing software you have, after the burning the video to the disc, the video quality is amazing! All of my discs work on my stand- alone player and my PS3 slim. This drive won't let you down!

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LG Electronics GGC-H20L LightScribe Blu-Ray/HD DVD Combo Drive (Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)Good Things:
1) It reads Blu-Ray and HD DVD discs. Great for a home theater or do-everything PC. HD DVD capability will be attractive to cheapskates who can buy HD movies for a fraction of the cost of Blu-Ray.
2) It does the usual stuff you'd expect, reading and writing DVD (single and dual layer) and CDROM. It rips audio CDs just fine too.
3) It claims to support Lightscribe discs, but I've never tested that. Sharpie markers are cheaper and faster.
Bad Things:
1) The bundled player software is not a full version, so you may need to upgrade or buy a different program. (New versions may not support HD DVD.)
2) The first drive I got was defective... it wouldn't read Blu-Ray or HD DVDs consistently, although it read and wrote DVD just fine. The replacement works great. This is why it lost one star.
3) There can be problems if your TV and computer video card aren't HDCP compliant. Something called AnyDVD may fix that if it's legal where you are. (Cyberlink's "BD Advisor" program can check if your computer is up to the task of playing Blu-Ray content.)
4) It doesn't write Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, but who cares, since you can't afford Blu-Ray blank media yet anyway.
5) The activity LED is too bright if it's in your line of sight when watching movies. I covered it with tape.

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LG Electronics CH08LS10 LightScribe SATA Blu-ray Combo Drive, Retail (Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)Got it home, popped open the pc, used the included sata cables to install it. Closed it up, turned it on, Windows 7 recognized it right away. Then I installed the included Cyberlink software. I was watching a Blu-Ray within 30 minutes of opening the box. I run a HDMI through my Sony STR-DH800 to my 56" Panasonic 56lcz70, looks and sounds amazing. Turned on the pass-through feature, loved it.

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LITE-ON 4x Blu-ray Disc SATA Internal Optical Drive iHOS104 Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this drive as a 2nd drive in my computer, with the added ability to play Blu-ray discs. For the price it really can't be beat, especially since it includes good software that costs retail almost as much as the drive. It's also a very quiet drive. So far it plays everything I stick in it, with no problems. The picture on my new 23" HP 1080p monitor is drop-dead gorgeous and very stable. You do need a decent video card to use this drive, but the one that came with my new HP has a dedicated 512 mb of memory and works fine. It also has an HDMI output.
The only minus I can say about the BD drive is that it came with an SATA cable, but no power conversion adapter.

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LG Electronics GGW-H20L LightScribe 6X Blu-Ray and 3X HD DVD-ROM SATA Drive - Bulk (Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is one of the few and soon to be discontinued examples of a computer optical drive that can read the now obsolete format HD DVD. However this is not possible without the supplied Cyberlink Software that is provided. An earlier drive that I purchased had an older version of the Cyberlink 7.0 software that produced an audio delay when watching HD DVD's, but this drive and software had no such problem.
Indeed these are the last of the HD DVD drives. The lesser sibling the GGC-H20L(cannot burn Blu-ray but does read them) is already disappearing from inventories. I don't expect to see this drive much longer and have snapped up a few in order to be able to build some HTPC rigs that are flexible in accommodating any format. Enjoy it while it lasts.

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Vinpower Digital 1 to 7 SATA LightScribe Blu-ray / Dvd / Cd Duplicator Manual Tower Controller Review

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(More customer reviews)Built myself a DVD duplicator on the cheap using this controller board. Xerox's duplicators are powered by the same brand of controller, so it must be decent enough. Does everything I need it to. If you're using an ATX power supply, get a tester as well since you'll need to short the 20/24 pin connector out in order to keep the power supply on.

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LG GGW-H20L Super Multi Blue - Blu-ray Disc Burner / HD DVD-ROM Drive w/ Lightscribe - 6x2x6x/3x - Serial ATA - internal - 5.25" Review

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(More customer reviews)For those that are used to using the combination of "AnyDVD by Slysoft" and "DVDShrink 3.2" to backup dvd's and are curious if there are similar steps for doing this with blu-rays. IT IS. Unfortunately there is no "dvdshrink 3.2 for blu-ray disks". There are several other methods that are very effective. I searched for a long time to find out this stuff so read carefully.
In general, what I do with this drive, is backup my blu-ray movies to an external hard drive, then stream them to my 52 inch samsung from my laptop using its HDMI port(which doesn't even have a blu-ray drive. If this sounds like something your trying to do then read on. If not, you should highly consider it.
Using AnyDVDHD by Slysoft first insert the blu-ray movie, right click the AnyDVD icon and click "Rip Video DVD to Harddisk". After that go to the directory in which you ripped the DVD to. Then Locate the correct .m2ts file that contains the movie (BDMV/STREAM).
An .m2ts file for dummy's is the blu-ray version of an .vob file. So usually the largest .m2ts file is the movie. You can run .m2ts files as video files through Nero v8 Showtime. Once you find the main movie .m2ts files (usually about 25 gigs). Locate another freeware program called TsRemux. This is just like DVDshrink 3.2 in the way that it can stream out unnecessary content (subtitles/foreign languages). Through TsRemux open up the .m2ts file that you have determined is the movie. Then you will see the extra contents. Select the first video stream, the first audio stream, and the first subtitle stream (they are usually the English ones, sometimes you may have to re-do this to locate the correct sound, but there should only be ONE OF EACH selected). Make sure you click the box about where the streams are that says "Blu-Ray TrueHD to .....". Click "remux" and viola. What was a 25 gig movie file should now only be about 15 gigs.

NOTE**** Right now it is WAY more cost efficient to back up your blu-rays to an external hard drive than to re-burn them onto a blu-ray disk. Disks average at about 25 dollars each. That's about eight movies for 200 dollars right? A 320 gig e.xternal will run you just as much as eight blu-ray disks but can fit 21 movies (at 15 gigs each).
NOTE* There are no advertisements in this review, I'm simply stating what I use to backup my own blu-ray disks, please only use the software that you find is most convenient for yourself. Thanks for reading and I hope I was helpful.
*Any further question google "Laymans Guide to Blu-ray" and click the first link.
Good Luck!


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Verbatim 96910 25 GB 6x Blu-ray Single Layer Recordable Disc BD-R, 1-Disc Jewel Case Review

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(More customer reviews)Excellent product!!! but keep this in mind 25GB / 1.073741824 = 23.3 GB of real storage. The 25GB storage "capacity" are expressed in decimal not in binary.

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Sony BDU-X10S - Disk drive - BD-ROM - 2x - Serial ATA - internal - 5.25" Review

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(More customer reviews)While building myself a computer recently, I decided to install a Blu-Ray drive. I decided to go with Sony because of the amazing Blu-Ray output quality I have seen from my PS3. The BDU-X10S is a fantastic player; the biggest turn-on for me was the reasonable cost of the player. It does everything upscale home theater Blu-Ray players can do, but for much less. I am running this player on Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit, and as with all Vistas, the media player does not read Blu-Ray. You will have to download software in order to view Blu-Ray discs; I am using WinDVD 9 ($99), and the setup has turned out to be phenomenal. If you are looking for a Blu-Ray player for your PC, the Sony BDU-X10S is the way to go.
Pros: awesome 1080p resolution we have come to expect from Sony, easy installation, reasonably priced, good warranty.
Cons: software required in order to view Blu-Ray movies.


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Plextor 12X Bd Writer Retail Review

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(More customer reviews)I build my own Workstations, and I like to use the best products. Plextor has always been at the top of my list, and with this item it has not disappointed me. It's very fast for both Blu-ray and DVD Burning. The installation and set up was Plug&Play, no problems. My latest Build was a Windows 7 Professional x64, and I go back to the DOS days, but I started using Plextor with Windows 95. One great Product!

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Panasonic SW-4583-CNC7 Blu Ray ROM Review

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(More customer reviews)I could not get this thing to play Blu Ray's :(. It does play DVD movies quite nice.


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