Sony BWU-100A Blu-ray Disc Writer

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.1.4 andDLA 5.20:

To test the DVD writing performance of Sony's new drive I used Verbatim 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R, 4x DVD-RW and 4x 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 8x, the BWU-100A uses Z-CLV, or Zone CLV. By looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the drive starts writing at 4x. When it reaches the 1.6GB mark, the writing speed increases to 8x and stays there until the very end of the session.

The BWU-100A also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. While the drive uses CLV when writing to DVD-RW media, it uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum DVD+RW writing speed.

While the BWU-100A wasn't nearly as fast as some of the DVD writers we've looked at recently, it performed as expected with both DVD±R and DVD±RW media.

To check the media compatibility of the BWU-100A, I ran a few tests using some of the media 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-100A'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.

Lastly, here are some results from our DVD-R test media. While the writing quality varied from one manufacturer to another, the results were fairly good for the most part.

To test the BWU-100A's packet writing performance I used DLA 5.20. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 5x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

The BWU-100A performed pretty well in our packet writing tests. While not the fastest drive we've tested, it turned in some respectable times when reading and writing to DVD±RW and DVD-RAM media.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.1.4:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the BWU-100A, I used Verbatim 2.4x DVD+R DL, Verbatim 4x DVD-R DL, Memorex 2.4x DVD+R DL and RiDATA 4x DVD-R DL media. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

Sony's new drive had no problems writing to the Verbatim 2.4x DVD+R DL, Verbatim 4x DVD-R DL and RiDATA 4x DVD-R DL media at 4x. With Memorex's 2.4x DVD+R DL media though, the writing speed was limited to only 2.4x.

With Nero, it took the BWU-100A about 27 minutes to write 8001MB of data. If you do the math, this is a good 16 minutes faster than the drive from Pioneer. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was pretty good with Verbatim's DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media. While higher on the second layer, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits and there were no readability problems. Unfortunately, the results weren't nearly as good with Memorex's DVD+R DL and RiDATA's DVD-R DL media. When scanned with the BenQ DW1640, the PI/PIF rates were very high at the layer change, causing some dips in the transfer rate graphs.