Sony BWU-200S Blu-ray Rewritable Drive Review

January 12, 2008

Review: Sony BWU-200S
Reviewed by: The Kipper
Provided by: Sony - USA
Firmware: 1.0a
Manufactured: September 2007

Sony USA was kind enough to send us their second generation Blu-ray Rewritable drive the BWU-200S.

The BWU-200S can now record BD-R discs at up to 4X speed, delivering a full 50BG disc in about 45 minutes. The BWU-200S also raises the bar in the DVD burning department, offering 16X max recording of standard DVD±discs. Also new in the BWU-200S is the introduction of a Serial ATA (SATA) interface for easier installation and better ventilation in today’s desktop PCs. The BWU-200S is fully compatible with all versions of Microsoft’s Vista and XP operating system.

The BWU-200S drive is a “triple writer” capable of recording BD-R (write once) and BD-RE (fully rewritable) discs, all formats of DVD, and CDs too, eliminating the need for separate BD and DVD/CD burners in a system. With up to 50GB of storage capacity and 30 years media archive life, Blu-ray Disc is an ideal backup & archive solution that challenges low end tape storage for performance and cost per gigabyte.

The BWU-200S comes with a comprehensive software suite from CyberLink for authoring video Blu-ray Discs and DVDs, burning data BD/DVD/CD discs, drive letter recording software for simple drag and drop recording, backup software for backing up or restoring files, and CyberLink’s popular PowerDVD software for playing back commercial Blu-ray Disc movies, DVDs recorded with high definition AVCHD video, as well as traditional DVD video discs.

Corporate Information:

Sony company logo

Sony Corporation is headquartered in Japan but it is a global company with presence on all continents.

New Sony headquarters, Minato-ku, Tokyo

Sony's history began during the first year of post-World War II occupation of Japan. In May of 1946, Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka founded Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K. (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation) in Tokyo. The startup capital valued at approximately $4000 was a loan from Morita's family that ran a sake business for many generations.

By mid-1950s, the company was making and exporting hundreds of thousands of early transistor radios to Europe and North America. In January of 1958, it changed its name to an easier-to-pronounce Sony.

Sony Corporation of America (SONAM), presently known as SCA, was established in the United States in February 1960.

Sony Corporation of America provides the following corporate overview:

Sony Corporation of America, based in New York City, is the U.S. subsidiary of Sony Corporation, headquartered in Tokyo. Sony is a leading manufacturer of audio, video, communications, and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets. Its music, motion picture, television, computer entertainment, and online businesses make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. Sony's principal U.S. businesses include Sony Electronics Inc., Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., and a 50% interest in Sony BMG Music Entertainment, one of the largest recorded music companies in the world. Sony recorded consolidated annual sales of approximately $70.3 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007, and it employs 163,000 people worldwide. Sony's consolidated sales in the U.S. for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007 were $18.9 billion.

Learn more about Sony Corporation of America by visiting the company website: http://www.sony.com/SCA/.

Learn more about Sony products at the Sony USA website: http://www.sony.com/.

Sony's global website is located at http://www.sony.net/.

BD (Blu-ray Disc)

Sony BWU-200S supports reading and writing BD-R and BD-RE, the write-once and rewritable versions of the Blu-ray Disc.

Blu-ray logo

Blu-ray Disc (BD) was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), with the first version of it finalized in June of 2002.

The Blu-ray Disc Association is directed by a group of electronics, computer, and entertainment companies, currently including:

Apple Computer, Inc.
Dell Inc.
Hewlett Packard Company
Hitachi, Ltd.
LG Electronics Inc.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Pioneer Corporation
Royal Philips Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Sharp Corporation
Sony Corporation
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
TDK Corporation
Thomson Multimedia
Twentieth Century Fox
Walt Disney Pictures
Warner Bros. Entertainment

Blu-ray media is structurally different from DVD media. The Blu-ray disc consists of a single 1.1 mm thick polycarbonate substrate with a 0.1 mm thick cover layer on the bottom side of the disc, while the DVD disc is made of two 0.6 mm thick substrates. In both cases, two substrates are bonded together by a UV-cured resin adhesive:

DVD vs. Blu-ray disc structure

The larger 25 GB and 50 GB storage capacity of the Blu-ray disc is due to the higher density of pits and tracks on the disc. Unlike previous optical discs, Blu-ray uses a shorter-wavelength, tighter-focused violet laser to read and write pits that are about three times smaller than pits used in DVDs:

CD, DVD and Blu-ray laser beam color and size

CD, DVD and Blu-ray pits and tracks as seen by a scanning electron microscope

Blu-ray disc surface mapped by an atomic force microscope

The following table compares the three current optical disc formats used for video storage:

Drive Specifications

Maximum Read and Write Speeds for BD, DVD and CD Recording:

BD-R: Up to 4X* CLV maximum writing (25/50GB**) and up to 4X maximum BD reading.
BD-RE: Up to 2X* CLV maximum writing (25GB/50GB**) and up to 2X maximum BD reading.
DVD±R DL: Up to 8X** P-CAV maximum writing and up to 8X maximum DVD Reading.
DVD±R: Up to 16X* CAV maximum writing and up to 16X maximum DVD Reading.
DVD+RW: Up to 8X* Z-CLV maximum rewriting and up to 8X maximum DVD Reading.
DVD-RW: Up to 6X* CLV maximum rewriting and up to 6X maximum DVD Reading.
DVD-RAM: Up to 5X* CLV maximum rewriting and up to 5X maximum DVD reading.
CD-R: Up to 40X* Z-CLV maximum writing and up to 32X maximum CD reading.
CD-RW: Up to 24X* Z-CLV maximum rewriting and up to 32X maximum CD reading.

*Using appropriately rated BD/DVD/CD media

**Requires Double/Dual Layer DVD±R or BD-/RE media

Below is the published specifications taken from the Sony Support Site on the new Sony BWU-200S.

Retail packaging

Let’s take a look at what comes with the retail package:

The BWU-200S comes with everything you need for quick and easy installation. In addition to the drive, the kit includes the following items:

BWU-200S User’s Guide
SATA data cable
SATA power cable (4 pin to 15 pin)
Software CD-ROM
Mounting hardware

System Requirements

Pentium IV 3.0Ghz or faster (or equivalent) CPU. When playing back DVDs encoded with AVCHD video, a Pentium Extreme Edition 840 with 3.2 GHz or faster CPU is recommended.
512MB RAM, 20GB available hard disk space
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, and Windows SP Home/Professional SP2.

Sony’s Software Disc for BD

BWU-200S BD/DVD/CD software Suite

Sony’s BW-200S drive comes bundled with BD-AV authoring software that provides seamless recording from a HDV format camcorder to BD-RE discs in BD-AV format (the Blu-ray format for recording personal contents). DVD video authoring is also supported, as well as DVD/CD burning software for creation of data, music, and video DVDs and CDs. The full-featured software suite also includes packet-writing software for users to easily record files and folders by dragging them to the drive icon when using Windows XP (this function is supported natively under Windows Vista). The software suite includes:

CyberLink PowerProducer/PowerDirector: Capture, edit, author, and burn high definition video and burn to BD-RE media in BD-AV format, or capture, edit, author, and burn standard definition video to DVD. Easy to understand and use.
CyberLink Power2Go: Comprehensive disc burning software for BD, DVD, CDs. Create data discs, music discs, and more.
CyberLink PowerBackup: Full featured disc backup/restore software supporting BD, DVD, CD discs as backup media. Built in scheduler allows selected data to be backed up regularly and features password protected backups for added security. Supports full, differential and excremental backup modes.
CyberLink InstantBurn: Packet writing software for Windows XP allows you to use a BD, DVD, or CD just like a big floppy disk, just drag and drop files and folders to the drive letter or icon and you done.
CyberLink PowerDVD: Blu-ray Disc and DVD video playback software for watching commercial Blu-ray Discs, Blu-ray Disc discs that you create, DVDs with high definition AVCHD video, or standard DVD Video discs. Note: This software may require HDCP compliant video card/display to playback Blu-ray Disc video content.
CyberLink PowerDVD Copy: Create backup copies of DVD Video disc you create, including capability to “shrink” an 8.5GB disc to fit on a standard 4.7GB disc.
CyberLink LabelPrint: Design and print custom CD and DVD labels right from your desktop, adds the perfect finishing touch to your project.

Also included is the CyberLink BD/HD advisor which will let you know that your set-up is Hi-Def ready or what you will need to address; here is a look at our test set-up for the Sony BWU-200S: