Installing I-O DATA's new Blu-ray Disc writer took only a few minutes. After taking the drive out of the box, I left the jumper set to master and installed it on the secondary IDE chain by connecting the IDE cable and power connector. When I turned on the computer the BIOS detected it as a drive supporting UDMA 66. After making sure that the DMA was enabled in the Device Manager, I was ready to start installing the software.
Software Installation:
As I mentioned earlier, the BRD-AM2B/U comes with a CD full of software from Ulead and InterVideo. If autorun is enabled, the setup process will start automatically when you put the disc in the drive.
While installing the DVD MovieFactory 4.7 suite is fairly straightforward, I was a little surprised by the lack of options its setup program gives you. Unlike previous versions, you cannot choose which components you want to install. Instead, you're forced to install the entire suite. Fortunately, you can go and launch the setup program for each component manually.
Documentation:
Since this is my first look at one of I-O DATA's drives, I really did not know what to expect from their documentation. After examining the box contents, I was happy to see that they included a "Setup Guide" with the BRD-AM2B/U. While not very large, this printed guide is well laid out and contains a good amount of useful information.
The guide starts off by going over the BRD-AM2B/U's system requirements, specifications and box contents. It also includes a few diagrams showing the various buttons and connectors located on the front and back of the drive.From here, the guide jumps right into the physical installation of the drive. The instructions take you step by step through the entire installation process and covers all the basics including how to set the jumpers, install the drive into an empty drive bay and hook up the cables. If you're not sure whether the drive should be set up as a master or slave, it also has a few example configurations. Last but not least, there is a section on how to install the bundled software.
In the end, installing the BRD-AM2B/U was very easy. Even though Blu-ray is a new technology, there were no problems getting the drive or the software installed and working correctly. Even then, if you do need a little help for some reason, the documentation I-O DATA has provided is more than sufficient. Overall, I give the installation an 8 out of a possible 10.
