Sony BWU-500S 12x Blu-ray Disc Writer

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 9.4.26.0 and Drag-to-Disc 9.0:

To test the DVD writing performance of Sony's new drive I used Verbatim 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R, 6x DVD-RW and 8x DVD+RW media. To get the writing times, a 4.38GB image was burned to our test discs using Nero.

When writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 16x, the BWU-500S uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Sony's new drive starts writing at about 6.7x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The BWU-500S also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. In both cases, the drive uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum writing speed.

The BWU-500S performed fairly well in our DVD writing tests. While its Z-CLV writing method put it at a slight disadvantage when writing to DVD-RW discs, the drive turned in some respectable times with DVD±R and DVD+RW media.

While Sony has a list of recommended media on its website, I wanted to see for myself how well the BWU-500S worked with some of the DVD+R and DVD-R discs available in my area. The media types, along with the average time it took the drive to write our 4.38GB image, are listed below.

So what about writing quality? Testing a drive's DVD writing quality isn't easy. Until now, there were very few options, unless you wanted to shell out thousands of dollars for a certified test machine. Thanks to KProbe, we can test a disc's PI (Parity Inner) and PIF (Parity Inner Fail) rates. For these tests I used a Lite-On SOHW-1673S and read the discs at 4x with the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8 and 1 respectively. For comparison, I also tested the discs on a BenQ DW1640. When combined with Nero CD Speed, the DW1640 is able to report PI Errors, PI Failures, Parity Outer Failures and even jitter levels. For this test, the discs are read at 8x with both the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8.

So what are "good" results supposed to look like? With KProbe, the PI errors should not exceed 280 and the number of PIF errors should stay below 4. When testing with CD Speed, the number of PI errors should stay below 280 as well. However, because it scans with an ECC sum of 8, a higher number of PIF errors is acceptable, as long as they do not exceed 32. Since POF errors are uncorrectable, we really don't want to see any of them at all.

I also put these discs through a "stress test" by reading them back at 16x with the DW1640. By reading these discs back at this speed, we can see if there are any readability issues caused by the number of errors or high levels of jitter. 

The BWU-500S's writing quality was pretty good with most of the DVD+R media we tested. Aside from a few small spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits.

While the writing quality was fairly good with the DVD-R media from HP and Verbatim, the discs from Sony and Taiyo Yuden yielded some mixed results. When tested with KProbe, the error rates were a bit high through some sections of the disc.

To test the BWU-500's packet writing performance I used Drag-to-Disc 9.0. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 12x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

The BWU-500S performed fairly well in our packet writing tests. While not as fast as the other drives when writing to DVD-RW discs, it turned in some respectable times with DVD+RW and DVD-RAM media.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 9.4.26.0:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the BWU-500S, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from Verbatim. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

The BWU-500S wasn't as fast as the drives from LG and Plextor when writing to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media. In our tests, it took 19:03 to write 8001MB of data to DVD+R DL media and 19:37 to do the same with DVD-R DL discs. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was pretty good with Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL media. Aside from a few isolated spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits. Unfortunately, the results weren't as good with the other DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media. While there weren't any readability issues, the error rates were a bit high throughout some sections of the discs.