Sony BWU-300S 8x Blu-ray Disc Writer

It has been nearly two years since I reviewed Sony's first Blu-ray Disc writer, the BWU-100A. Since then, companies like LG and Pioneer have raised the bar, introducing drives with new features and faster BD writing speeds. With the BWU-300S, Sony has risen to the challenge. Based loosely on the Panasonic SW-5584, the drive offers good looks, a number of useful features and some of the fastest BD reading and writing speeds available.

The BWU-300S is the first drive from Sony with the ability to write to both BD-R and BD-R DL media at 8x. At this speed, the drive completed our tests in record time, burning a full 25GB disc in less than 14 minutes and a full 50GB disc in a less than 28 minutes. The only real downside is the BWU-300S's media requirements, as it writes to only a few types at this speed. This normally wouldn't be an issue for enthusiasts, but the 6x BD-R media required to write at 8x is currently very hard to find in markets outside of Japan.

Using the bundled software, the BWU-300S played all of the Blu-ray movies I had on hand, including the BD-Live enabled features on the bundled copy of "Men in Black." The drive also performed fairly well in our transfer rate tests, reading BD-ROM's as well as select BD-R and BD-R DL media at 8x. Unfortunately, its speeds were limited to only 2x when reading BD-RE discs.

Sony's new drive also has the ability to read and write to all standard DVD formats, including DVD-RAM. The BWU-300S performed very well when writing to DVD±R discs, taking less than 6 minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD. The drive also had no problems holding its own when writing to other types of media. However, there were a few cases where the writing quality could have been better. Nevertheless, the BWU-300S was fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD±R media at 16x but slowed to only 6x when reading DVD-Videos.

When it came to reading and writing CD's, the BWU-300S's performance was a mixed bag. On one hand, the drive did very well in our writing tests, turning in some impressive times thanks to its 48x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing speeds. On the other hand, the BWU-300S didn't perform as well as expected when reading CD's. It had a hard time reaching its rated speeds when reading pressed and CD-R media and its DAE speeds were limited to only 24x.

Sony's new Blu-ray Disc writer also has its share of features. To prevent buffer underruns, the BWU-300S is equipped with an 8MB buffer that is backed up by Sony's Power Burn technology. The drive also has a good number of writing and rewriting speeds to choose from as well as the ability to set the book type of DVD+R DL media. To top it off, Sony has included CyberLink's BD Solution suite, a black tray cover and the movie "Men in Black" on Blu-ray Disc.

The BWU-300S is available now and can be purchased directly from Sony or through retailers like Amazon for about $400.

Highs:

• Writes to BD-R and BD-R DL media at 8x
• Writes to BD-RE media at 2x
• Writes to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 16x
• Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
• Writes to DVD-RW media at 6x
• Writes to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media at 8x
• Reads single layer BD-ROM's at 16x
• Reads BD-R and BD-R DL media at 6x
• Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 16x
• Reads DVD±R media at 16x
• Reads DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media at 8x
• Features 48x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing speeds
• 8MB buffer
• Good CD-R writing quality
• Features Sony's Power-Burn technology
• Includes software from CyberLink
• Nice looking design with bright blue LED
• Includes black tray cover
• Supports bitsetting for DVD+R DL media

Lows:

• High media requirements when writing to BD-R and BD-R DL media at 8x
• Questionable writing quality with some DVD±R and DVD+R DL media
• Had a hard time reaching its rated CD read speeds
• Reads BD-RE media at only 2x
• Reads DVD-Videos at only 6x
• Rips audio CD's at only 24x
• Cannot set the book type of DVD+R and DVD+RW media
• Expensive