12X Blu-Ray Writer!

Pioneer (Pioneer BDR-205) has now introduced a 12X blu-ray writer that's suppose to be the current fast available. Now that it's speed is up, and the prices are down, I think it's it to take the plunge and make the purchase. Anyone besides me buy one of these things yet? Or is this one of those technologies most (other than video enthusiasts) just let fall by the wayside?

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/30/pioneers-12x-bdr-205-blu-ray-burner-is-so-fast-its-ahead-of-it/

With external enclosure:

http://www.videoguys.com/Bundle/Pio...with+Media+and+External+USB+Enclosure/59.aspx

 

prices aren't "down" on the blank media, bro.

 

LOL, you are a nitpicker aren't you? And that's not likely to change anytime soon either. But when you consider the alternative--1 bd equals 10 dvds--it's not too hard a pill to swallow. Is it?

 

Wow! Thats not too bad.

How long would it take to burn a Blu-Ray lets say at 10X?

How much are these Blank media disks?

 

Gotta make sure you have an eSATA connection. USB2 will max out at 7x Blu-Ray under the best conditions.

 

Holy cow, that may be next on my list of must-things-to-buy, next to a new notebook, and Intel SSD (those come first ).
Are running internal optical drives in an external enclosure reliable?
Is this the model the OP is talking about? It's only $220 on Newegg right now (OEM though).

 

it's a pretty big nit to pick when the drive's value is found in blank media.

yes, one BD can hold a lot of data. But therein lies one of its many issues:

1.) one broken BD = 10 broken DVDs. talk about losing a lot of data..

2.) one bad burn = $20.00 down the drain.

3.) 10 blank DVDs = $2.00. one blank BD = $20.00.

Idunno man. to me, the value of BD won't be realized until the price of the MEDIA comes down. When I can get a 3 or 4-pack for $15-$20, I'll be in (in fact, my Vaio has a BD-R drive), but I've not bought a blank BD yet, and at these prices, I may not for a long time.

Not to curtail your excitement...it's just that most people aren't adopting BD writers because of the cost of the media, not the cost of the BD writers.

 

I've had a BD-R for a couple years now. Most of the things I've burned have been re-writeable discs doing backs ups. While the BDR-205 is very fast, it still does BD-REs at 2x like my BD-R.

 

I don't think you're really being fair to blu-ray disc; and some on your cons just don't follow a logical sequence of real events. For one, a broken disc? I don't know about you, but I've never broken a disc of any type. And although it could happen, the same applies to any other form of data storage. Same thing with your ratios of damaged discs. A HD or flash can also be damaged. That's especially true for a HD since it's an active recording unit.

As for the increased capacity being a downside, I haven't see a single thread that doesn't advocate the increasing of storage regardless of the medium.

 

I have had pieces of audio CDs break on me... a scratch out of nowhere on one... a bit of the data layer chipped off on another one.

I suppose for only archiving BluRays might work... but then their durability is as of yet unproven...
Use a disc and you risk damaging it.

 

I like having an image backup on a single disc. It's handy.

No bad burns yet. Maybe it's the price I paid for them (2x BD-RE DL 50GB ~$15 each), but I think they're more reliable. They have some anti-scratch resistant crap on them, too, which makes the burning side black which does look pretty sick.

~Ibrahim~

 

As far as i'm concerned , flash or hard drive storage is most reliable and cheap... u can just swap drives in an external exclousure as they fill up...

 

50GB for $15? I'd like to see the flash drive/hard drive that can do that price point.

That's $.30/GB.

Reliability: I'll give you that. But you can drop a disk more times than you can drop a hard drive. It's hard scratches that mess up disks. And plenty of hard drives fail/error in a while, too. Whether optical outlives them, I don't know

~Ibrahim~

 

I think we're missing the greatest benefit of discs here: distribution and ease of use. Try sending out two dozen flash drives or HD and see how well that works for you.

Really guys, there are no such thing as the perfect forms of data storage; and I'm certainly not implying that disc are perfect. But to say you won't use them because the might break is really not a valid argument. They've just one alternative among many that have come a long way and deserve some credit for what they're best for.

Incidentally, the last time you installed a new program, what media was it on?

 

@Krane

At the same time, a hard drive/flash drive will work in basically any computer. Try getting your files off a Blu-ray disk is going to be a bit harder if you don't have your computer there.

Different mediums, for sure, for different purposes.

 

Yeah, but like I said, it's the only practical way to send out copies of your HD photos/video/production/data etc.

Anyway, I ordered the BDR-205 in an external kit.

 

Hard drive
The only thing I install using disks is my OS.

I think Blu-Ray hasn't reached the point of being truly useful as either a form of media distribution or data backup. Most people do not have a Blu-Ray reader, which prevents sharing media/data with friends using the disks. Each Blu-Ray disk is prohibitively expensive, so it's still more worth it to use DVDs to back up the important data that need to be permanent.

A few years down the road, and it'll probably be much more useful.

 

Well you're lucky. I got that and CS4. Just think how much easier it would have been to have it all on one disc, instead of five.

Hmm, those are some legitimate points. On the other hand, didn't they say those same things back when DVDs first began to replaced tape and CDs?

You can get a blu-ray player for $200 now. That was the same price that DVD players were when they became mainstream. And the price has dropped tremendously since they were introduced just a few years ago.

 

Correction: The highly rated, Panasonic DMP-BD60K has been reduced to $160!

 

Thanks for the heads up on this BR burner!
I been working with Blu Rays for several months now, I have a high definition camcorder and I burn our Hi Def memories to BluRay, our home movies look awesome
I also back up some of this unedited footage to BluRay, I back up our pictures and other valuable data to BR as well, for safe keeping.
I been buying my blank media at link below:
http://www.meritline.com/merax-blu-ray-media-bdr-25gb-4x-white-inkjet-prinable---p-37057.aspx
It comes to $2.30 a disk, have not get a coaster at all yet and I went through several cakes of them already. If you buying any of this disks check the compatibility burner list at the link, scrolling down.
It is nice to have all my precious data backed up to BluRay, gives me peace of mind with the current hard drives, hard to know when they going to give up the ghost.

Jose.

 

You are correct. Hopefully we can expose the all the limitation--and merits--of everything blu-ray in this thread.

It's good to see somebody recognizes the importance of that. While regular DV discs look good when transfered to DV discs, they pale in comparison to the higher ratio of blu-ray. If you have a HD camera, you need to have an HD format to transfer it to.

Still, how universal blu-ray discs are to other machines remains to be seen. However, everything I've heard so far, says that video, (save dual-layer (DL)) and especially data, is pretty universally compatible.

 

The price is going down now. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300396528402
Verbatim Blu-ray 50GB (Pack of 10) for $67 free shipping. If you do the math, the price is about 13 cents per GB which is about equal to DVD DL from the same manufacturer http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817130040

The only thing is you can't burn it at 12x with that particular disc. You have to slow it down to 2x. 2x seems slow but bear in mind that 1x with Blu-ray /= 1x with DVD. Burning at 2x is about equal to burning at 6.5x with DVD. http://www.emedialive.com/articles/readarticle.aspx?articleid=11404#iiia