For the BWU-300S's software bundle, Sony has turned to CyberLink. The CD that comes with the drive contains the CyberLink BD Solution suite which includes PowerProducer, PowerDirector, Power2Go, PowerBackup, and PowerDVD.
CyberLink PowerProducer 3 - With CyberLink's PowerProducer you can create your own movie discs quickly and easily. Right from the start, this wizard based software gives you a number of options to select from. From here you can choose to produce a new movie disc, edit an existing one or record video directly to DVD or BD.
PowerProducer lets you create a number of different movie discs. Looking at the menu below, you can choose from a number of video format types including VCD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc and AVCHD. The software also supports various disc capacities and specific video recording formats such as DVD-VR, DVD+VR and BDAV.
While you can capture your own video, PowerProducer gives you the ability to import video files in a number of different formats. Once added to your production, you can use the built-in editor to trim, merge or split your video clips. PowerProducer also allows you to set chapters within the video content and add your own custom menus, backgrounds, fonts and titles.
CyberLink PowerDirector 7 - The BWU-300S comes with CyberLink's video editing software, PowerDirector. To create your own custom movies, simply drag and drop video footage onto the editing timeline and then add scene transitions, background music, or title effects.
You can also use PowerDirector's "Magic" editing tools to clean up video clips and images, condense long video segments and apply pre-designed style templates. When you're done editing your video, you have the option to save it to your hard drive, create a streaming file or write it back to DV tape.
CyberLink Power2Go 6 - Power2Go is the main disc burning program included with the BWU-300S. With this software, users can create various types of CD's, DVD's and BD's or make backups of existing discs. Power2Go also offers enhanced security features, allowing you to password protect and encrypt the names of files on your discs.
CyberLink PowerBackup 2 - If you're looking for a quick and easy way to backup your data, PowerBackup is the answer. Depending on your needs, PowerBackup can do full, differential, and incremental backups as well as fast stream-to-disc archiving.
Backup jobs can be scheduled to run at regular intervals so the data is always protected. PowerBackup also offers more advanced features like file filtering, compression and password protection.
CyberLink InstantBurn 5 - InstantBurn is CyberLink's packet writing software. Like Roxio's Drag-to-Disc or Nero's InCD, it allows you to use your CD, DVD or BD writer as if it was another hard drive or a huge floppy disk. Once formatted, you can cut, copy, and paste or rename files and folders on a CD-RW, DVD±RW or BD-RE disc.
CyberLink PowerDVD 8 - CyberLink's PowerDVD is one of the more popular software DVD players on the market right now. Along with support for DVD's, it can be used to play back Blu-ray Discs and other high-def formats including H.264, HD MPEG-2, and WMV-HD. With its support for BD-Live, PowerDVD also gives you the ability to access additional content via the Internet.
Unfortunately, the version of PowerDVD bundled with the BWU-300S only supports 2 speaker output. If you want to take advantage of movies encoded with Dolby Digital or DTS, you'll need to buy the retail version of PowerDVD Ultra.
Like Sony's previous Blu-ray Disc writers, the BWU-300S isn't short on features. This Serial ATA equipped drive not only looks good, it offers some of the fastest Blu-ray reading and writing speeds available. The BWU-300S is also backwards compatible with all major CD and DVD formats and includes features like an 8MB buffer, Power-Burn buffer underrun protection and a great software bundle from CyberLink. Unfortunately, it lacks bitsetting support for single layer DVD+R and DVD+RW media. Even then, the Sony BWU-300S scores a solid 8 out of 10 for its features.
