Along with smaller cable size, one of the biggest benefits of Serial ATA is its ease of installation. Because it uses a point to point connection, setting jumpers has become a thing of the past. In most cases, installation is as simple as plugging in the SATA and power cables and turning the computer on. Needless to say, it took only a couple of minutes to install Pioneer's new Blu-ray Disc writer in our test computer. After making sure that the BDR-2203 was recognized by Windows, I was ready to start installing the software.
Software Installation:
As I mentioned earlier, the BDR-2203 comes with a CD full of software from CyberLink. If you have autorun enabled, the menu pictured below will automatically come up when you insert the disc.
You can view information on the various applications in the software bundle by clicking on their names. Otherwise, you can start the setup process by clicking the "Install Now" button. After selecting your preferred language and entering your customer information, you'll be presented with a list of components to choose from.
From here you can choose to install Power2Go, PowerDirector and PowerDVD. To complete the installation, select the components you want and click next a few more times. Once the files are copied over, you can start burning your own discs.
Documentation:
The BDR-2203 comes with a set of "Operating Instructions." While not very large, this manual is well laid out and contains a fair amount of useful information. It starts out by going over the features of the BDR-2203. This includes an extensive list of specs as well as a few diagrams showing all of the buttons and connectors on the front and back of the drive. Pioneer has done a great job here as everything is labeled clearly and the functions of each are explained very well. From here, the manual jumps right into the physical installation of the drive. This section is very brief and consists mainly of some written instructions and a single diagram showing how the power and SATA cables should be connected.
Like the other Pioneer drives we've reviewed, the BDR-2203 was very easy to install. Even though Blu-ray is still a relatively new technology, there were no problems getting the drive or the software installed and working correctly. The documentation Pioneer has included with the drive is brief, but should be enough to get it up and running. Nevertheless, I would have liked to have seen some better installation instructions. With this in mind, the BDR-2203 gets an 8 out of a possible 10 for this section of the review.
