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Review: Sony BWU-300S Reviewed by: Dee Provided by: Sony Optiarc Firmware: 1.0c Manufactured: September 2008

Sony Optiarc was kind enough to send us the BWU-300S Blu-ray writer for review. The drive supports Blu-ray writing and reading, in addition, this drive also supports DVD±R/RW, DVD-RAM and CD-R/RW writing.

It’s always exciting to get hold of a new piece of technology, especially when the leap in technology is so far reaching as Blu-ray offers, with much improved storage capacity, the possibility of being able to watch movies in High Definition, bringing a completely new viewing experience.

In this review we will be testing out the latest Blu-ray burner, the BWU-300S from Sony, one of the world’s largest and most respected electronics manufacturers.

The Sony Optiarc BWU-300S supports 8x BD-R, 2x BD-RE, 16x DVD±R, 8x/6x DVD+RW/-RW, and 8x DVD+R DL/-R DL writing technology, allowing Blu-ray discs of 50GB and DVD Double/Dual Layer discs of 8.5GB to be written. In addition, the Sony BWU-300S also supports DVD-RAM reading and writing at 5x, and CD-R/RW writing speeds of 48x/24x.

Company Information

Sony Optiarc started as a joint-venture with Sony and NEC but since December 2008, Optiarc is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony

Drive Specifications

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We found the specifications of the Sony BWU-300S at the Sony website

What’s inside the box

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Now it’s time to take a look at the drive itself and what the drive came shipped with.

Packaging

Our drive was the boxed retail version

Box front

Box rear

 

Box left and right sides

Box top

Box contents

The Sony BWU-300S retail package contain the BWU-300S drive, alternate black disk drawer cover, SATA data lead, fixing screws, SATA power adapter, instruction manual, and software disk.

Now let’s take a look at the drive.

The bezel of the Sony BWU-300S is nicely styled. We can also see various logos, an emergency eject hole, single green LED and an eject button.

Drive top

Drive bottom

On the top of the drive we found two labels and we can see the drive was manufactured in China during September 2008.

On the rear of the drive we can see from left to right, SATA power and data connectors.

Now let’s head on to the next page were we can take a look at the features of the drive….

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Test machine

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For this review we will be using a computer with the following configuration:

Hardware:

• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4 (Intel X48 chipset)
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
• RAM: 8 GB Crucial Balistix Tracer (red) dual channel kit DDR2 800
• GFX: ATI HD 4870 (512 Megabytes GDDR5 HDCP compliant)
• Sound: Onboard Realtek ALC889 HD audio controller
• Hard disk OS: OCZ Vertex series 120GB SSD
• Hard disk storage: 2X 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (SATA 2) - 1x 1TB WD green.
• Case: Antec 900
• PSU: Enermax Liberty 620W
• Display: Samsung Syncmaster 245B 24” widescreen LCD (HDCP compliant)
• Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium (64 bit) with Service Pack 1

System setup:

The Sony BWU-300S was connected to one of the main-board's SATA ports and reports as a SONY BDRW BWU-300S.

From the screenshot from Nero InfoTool above, we can see the Sony BWU-300S supports BD-R, BD-RE and BD-ROM reading. According to Nero InfoTool, it also reports that the drive is capable of writing BD-R and BD-RE media. The drive came shipped with firmware version 1.0b. Firmware 1.0c became available shortly after testing began, and the drive was updated.

Installed software:

• Nero Burning Rom 9
• Nero CD/DVD Speed
• Nero InfoTool
• DVDFab Platinum
• Slysoft CloneCD
• Exact Audio Copy

Our review PC has Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit installed with Service Pack 1.

Features and techniques

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Software Bundle:

Now let’s take a brief look at the supplied software bundle. Please note, we may not use any of this software in this review.

The Sony BWU-300S is supplied with CyberLink’s BD Solution software and includes the following applications.

• Power Producer
• Power Director
• PowerDVD 8
• Instant Burn
• Power2Go
• BD Advisor

Blu-ray disc Suite main menu

Power Producer main menu

Power DVD

Power2Go

Power2Go, make Blu-ray

Blu-ray Disc advisor

BookType (BitSetting):

The Sony BWU-300S supports automatic BitSetting, and is capable of writing DVD+R DL media with DVD-ROM book type. However, BitSetting of DVD+R/RW is not supported.

Here is how you could check if your discs are really written with DVD-ROM book type:

Start Nero CD-DVD Speed and click the Disc info button and you should get something like this:

DVD+R DL with book type DVD-ROM

Another quick test is to start Nero CD-Speed and look at the disc information:

Writing technique

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Now it’s time to take a closer look at the write technology used by the Sony BWU-300S:

For these tests we used CD-Speed and Nero Disc Speed and wrote a full disc at the drive’s maximum speed.

CD Recordable:

According to the specifications of the Sony BWU-300S, it should be able to write CD-R media at a maximum speed of 48x.

The Sony BWU-300S uses CAV, (Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 48X. This gives an average speed of 35.61x and a total writing time of 2 minutes and 42 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see, the Sony BWU-300S was among the fastest when writing CD-R media.

CD Re-writable:

According to the specifications of the Sony BWU-300S, it should be able to write CD-RW media at a maximum speed of 24x.

The Sony BWU-300S uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 24X. This gives an average speed of 23.26x and a total writing time of 3 minutes and 51 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see, the Sony BWU-300S was about average when compared to our other drives when writing CD-RW media.

16x DVD+R writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Sony BWU-300S, it should be able to write DVD+R/-R media at a maximum speed of 16x.

DVD+R

The Sony BWU-300S uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity) to write at its maximum speed of 16X. This gives an average speed of 11.32x and a total writing time of 5 minutes and 48 seconds.

16x DVD-R writing speed:

DVD-R

The Sony BWU-300S uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity) to write at its maximum speed of 16X. This gives an average speed of 11.36x and a total writing time of 5 minutes and 54 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see from our tables, the Sony BWU-300S was above average when writing DVD±R media.

8X DVD+RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Sony BWU-300S, it should be able to write DVD+RW at a maximum speed of 8x.

The Sony BWU-300S uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 6.78xx and a total writing time of 8 minutes and 35 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Sony BWU-300S was below average regarding speed when writing our test DVD+RW media.

6x DVD-RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Sony BWU-300S, it should be able to write DVD-RW at a maximum speed of 6x.

The Sony BWU-300S uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 6X. This gives an average speed of 6.83x and a total writing time of 10 minutes and 29 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Sony BWU-300S was about average when writing DVD-RW media.

8x DVD+R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Sony BWU-300S, it should be able to write DVD+R DL at a maximum speed of 8x.

The Sony BWU-300S uses P-CAV, (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 6.69x and a total writing time of 19 minutes and 45 seconds.

8x DVD-R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Sony BWU-300S, it should be able to write DVD-R DL at a maximum speed of 8x.

The Sony BWU-300S uses P-CAV, (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 6.69x and a total writing time of 17 minutes and 36 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Sony BWU-300S was one of the fastest drives when writing DVD+R DL media.

5x DVD-RAM writing speed

According to the specifications of the Sony BWU-300S, it should be able to write DVD-RAM at a maximum speed of 5x.

The Sony BWU-300S uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 5X. This gives an average speed of 4.91x and a total writing time of 11 minutes and 20 seconds.

Below, we made a comparison table:

The Sony BWU-300S was about average when writing our DVD-RAM media.

8x BD-R (Single Layer) writing speed:

According to the specifications, the Sony BWU-300S drive should be able to write BD-R 25GB Single Layer media at 8x. For this test we used Nero CD-DVD Speed to create a test disc. To test the drive’s maximum write speed, we enabled “Streaming.”

The Sony BWU-300S uses P-CAV, (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 6.94x and a total writing time of 13 minutes and 49 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Sony BWU-300S was the fastest drive when writing BD-R media.

2x BD-RE (Single Layer) writing speed:

According to the specifications, the Sony BWU-300S drive should be able to write BD-RE 25GB Single Layer media at 2x.

The Sony BWU-300S uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 2X. This gives an average speed of 1.98xx and a total writing time of 45 minutes and 17 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Sony BWU-300S was about average when writing our BD-RE media.

8x BD-R (Double Layer) writing speed:

According to the specifications, the Sony BWU-300S drive should be able to write BD-R DL 50GB Double Layer media at 8x. For this test we used Nero CD-DVD Speed to create a test disc. To test the drive’s maximum write speed, we enabled “Streaming.”

The Sony BWU-300S uses P-CAV, (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 6.94x and a total writing time of 27 minutes and 24 seconds.

Summary:

The Sony BWU-300S was fast when writing DVD+R media. The Sony BWU-300S was one of the fastest drives when writing DVD+R DL media and more important, the fastest drive when writing BD-R media. The Sony BWU-300S was also fast when writing CD-R media.

Let’s head on to the next page where we will check reading performance….

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Reading performance

For these tests we will use Nero CD/DVD-Speed to read various BD’s, CD’s and DVD’s, including audio discs and DVD-media.

CD reading performance:

CD-ROM:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing the Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD that is close to 75 minutes in length. Below you will see the produced result:

The Sony BWU-300S reached 46.26x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Sony BWU-300S was one of the fastest drives when reading our test CD-ROM

CD Recordable discs:

For this test we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD. The disc we used was a Ricoh 52X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Moser Baer India.

The Sony BWU-300S reached 46.53x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Sony BWU-300S was one of the fastest drives when reading our test CD-R

CD Re-writable discs:

Again, we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD; this time we used a Verbatim Ultra Speed (32X) CD-RW disc made by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

The Sony BWU-300S reached 32.73x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Sony BWU-300S was about average when reading our test CD-RW.

100 minute CD-R:

The Sony BWU-300S could not read our 100 minute test CD-R.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the Sony BWU-300S, again we used Nero CD/DVD-Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is slightly larger than the disc used for the other tests, to be exact it’s nearly 79 minutes in length (78:53:31).

The Sony BWU-300S reached 25.08x when reading our test audio disc. Let’s compare it with some drives below.

The Sony BWU-300S was one of the slowest drives when reading our test CD-Audio disc.

DVD reading performance:

Again, we will use Nero CD-Speed to measure the reading performance, this time for various types of DVD discs. The drive should read pressed single layer DVD-discs at 12X.

Pressed DVD Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with Single and Double Layer DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it’s useful to be able to read the discs at higher speeds if you’re going to extract (rip) the content of the disc to your hard drive.

DVD Video (single layer)

DVD Video (double layer OTP)

DVD Video (double layer PTP)

The Sony BWU-300S is riplocked, which severely limits the ripping speed of the drive. However, it does ensure that the Sony BWU-300S is a very quiet when playing a DVD-Video.

We present the table below for comparison with other Blu-ray drives.

The Sony BWU-300S was one of the slowest drives when reading pressed DVD-Video discs.

DVD – DVD+R/RW:

For this test we used a Verbatim 16X DVD+R and a RICOH 8X DVD+RW with about 4.4GB of data. Below are the results:

DVD+R

DVD+RW

We present the table below for comparison with other Blu-ray drives.

The Sony BWU-300S was one of the fastest drives when reading DVD+R, but one of the slowest drives when reading DVD+RW.

DVD – DVD-R/RW:

For this test we used a Verbatim 16X DVD-R disc and a Verbatim 6X DVD-RW disc filled with about 4.4GB of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

DVD-RW

There are hardly any differences in the speed, compared to reading the DVD+R/RW discs.

We present the table below for comparison with other Blu-ray drives.

The Sony BWU-300S was the fastest drive when reading DVD-R, but one of the slowest drives when reading DVD-RW.

DVD±R DL discs:

DVD+R DL:

The Sony BWU-300S read our DVD+R DL test disc at 8x reading speed.

DVD-R DL:

The Sony BWU-300S read our DVD-R DL test disc at 8x reading speed.

We present the table below for comparison with other Blu-ray drives.

The Sony BWU-300S was about average when reading our test DVD±DL media.

DVD-RAM:

We present the table below for comparison with other Blu-ray drives.

The Sony BWU-300S was about average when reading our test DVD-RAM media.

Blu-ray reading performance:

BD-ROM SL

We selected a BD-ROM SL disc containing a movie (Planet Earth)

The Pioneer read our BD-ROM DL media at 8x reading speed.

BD-ROM DL:

We selected a BD-ROM DL disc containing the movie (Casino Royale)

The Sony BWU-300S read our DL BD-ROM DL media at 8x reading speed.

BD-R: (media burned at 8x)

Where the burning speed is support at 8x, the Sony BWU-300S read our BD-R disc at 8x reading speed.

BD-R: (media burned at below 8x)

Where the burning speed is support at below 8x, the Sony BWU-300S read our BD-R disc at 4x reading speed.

BD-R DL: (media burned at 8x)

Where the burning speed is support at 8x, the Sony BWU-300S read our BD-R disc at 8x reading speed.

BD-R DL: (media burned at below 8x)

Where the burning speed is support at below 8x, the Sony BWU-300S read our BD-R disc at 4x reading speed.

BD-RE:

The Sony BWU-300S read our BD-RE at 2x reading speed.

BD-RE DL:

The Sony BWU-300S read our BD-RE at 2x reading speed.

Summary:

The Sony BWU-300S is a very fast reader of BD media, providing the media is supported at 8x while burning. BD media burned at below 8x is read much slower. DVD recordable (single layer) reading performance was very good indeed, as was CD-R.

Now let’s head over to the next page where we will test CD-R/RW writing performance……

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The specifications of the Sony BWU-300S state that the drive is able to write CD-R/RW discs at 48x/24x. Let us find out how the drive really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

Write quality:

We will test CD-R discs from many different CD-R manufacturers. To really measure the write speed, we used the “create data CD” function in Nero CD-Speed. The discs were written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. For the quality test, we used Nero CD-Speed’s Disc Quality Scan and combined this with a Transfer Rate Test to test if the resulting disc was readable. Also note that different drives and different reading speeds may affect the results obtained when scanning the discs. We used a Lite-On SOHR-5238S drive with firmware 4S09 and scanned the discs at 48X speed.

There is more than one way to handle C1 and C2 error detection/correction, but a simple and common way is to detect and correct up to two errors per frame in each stage and detect three or more errors:

• E11: 1 error detected and corrected by C1 layer
• E21: 2 errors detected and corrected by C1 layer
• E31: 3 or more errors detected but not corrected by C1 layer

The sum of these (per second) is called the Block Error Rate: BLER=E11+E21+E31

• E32: 3 or more errors detected but not corrected by C2 layer

Any E31 is un-correctable by the C1 layer and will result in the bytes in that frame being redistributed into multiple frames which are passed to the C2 layer.

Any E32 is un-correctable by the C2 layer and will result in interpolation being used for Audio CDs or will result in third layer error correction being used for Data CDs.

Different drives have different ways of reporting these errors in a Disc Quality scan.  Lite-On CD-RW drives will report C1 and C2 errors this way:

• C1=BLER=E11+E21+E31
• C2=E32

Here is an easier way to look at Disc Quality Scanning:

A written CD-R disc will always have some C1 errors; C1 errors are easily corrected by the drive’s error correction capabilities. The next level of errors is C2, while C2 errors could also be corrected by most drive’s error correction capabilities; they are not wanted on a good quality disc. A good disc should not contain any C2 errors, and preferably have an average C1 error amount of below 2.0 for the best discs, or at least below 10.0 averages for good quality discs. After C2 errors, there are only un-correctable errors that will make a disc unusable.

In short, our analysis will be based on this guideline to determine the quality of the burned disc:

Below are the obtained results:

CD-R

An excellent result to start our CD-R quality tests.

The burning quality is excellent, but the disc was only burned at 24x.

The result looks ok, but there is a single C2 error, and the disc was written at 16x.

We have another excellent result.

The result is good.

CD-RW

The result is very good.

Summary:

With the Sony BWU-300S writing performance is generally excellent, with complete disc's burned in well under 3 minutes when the media is burned at 48x. Writing quality is in most parts very good to excellent.

Now let’s head on to the next page where we will test DVD recordable performance….

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The specifications of this drive tell us that it should write DVD±R at 16x and DVD+RW/-RW at 8x/6x. In this part, we will measure the writing times for various types of DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW discs. We will also focus on write quality and media compatibility.

Write quality:

Disc Quality Scanning - PI/PO:

DVDs use an error detection and correction system (ECC) which is usually transparent to the end-user, but we can get an idea of the "quality" of a disc by performing Disc Quality Scanning, which shows how many errors the drive is detecting and correcting behind the scenes.

There are two layers or stages of error detection and correction on all DVD media; these are called Parity Inner (PI) and Parity Outer (PO). Data is arranged in ECC blocks containing rows and columns of user data with additional columns of PI error correction and rows of PO error correction.

An ECC block contains 32 KByte of user data with some added control data, scrambled and arranged in 192 rows and 172 columns with an additional 10 columns of PI error correction and 16 rows of PO error correction.

The Parity Inner stage is performed first, and up to 5 bytes in a row can be corrected. Any row with one or more errors is counted as a Parity Inner Error (PIE). Any row with more than 5 errors is considered un-correctable and is counted as a Parity Inner Failure (PIF).

The Parity Outer stage is performed next and will detect and attempt to correct any errors that are still left after the PI stage. Any column that has errors is counted as a Parity Outer Error (POE), and any column that has un-correctable errors is counted as a Parity Outer Failure (POF). If a POF occurs the drive can sometimes re-read the problematic spot and correct the problem; this happens only during normal reading and not during scanning, however.

Disc Quality scanning is influenced by the drive performing the test, and that's why different drives report different results and even the same drive will report (slightly) different results when scanning the same disc again. Please note that PI/PO and Jitter scans only test some aspects of disc quality and that other important aspects are not revealed.

But what is a good scan? That is a discussion that we don’t think will end soon, as different drives report different amounts of errors, some players are more picky about media than others, and so on. But as a comparison we present you with scans from two pressed DVD discs:

The scan above shows the results from a pressed, Single Layer DVD-Video disc (Goldeneye).

The above scan shows the result from a pressed Double Layer DVD-Video disc (The Green Mile).

The Lite-On DVD burners used in this review report errors as follows:

• PIE per 8 ECC blocks (rows with 1 or more bytes in error)
• PIF per 1 ECC block (rows with 6 or more bytes in error)

We want to see as low error numbers as possible.
PIE per 8 ECC blocks should be no higher than 280.
PIF per 1 ECC block should be no higher than 4.

Both the pressed DVD-discs above are well within the standards if we ignore the single PIF spike in the DL scan.

If you want to look at the standards for yourself, download the ECMA 267 Standard for DVD-ROM, the ECMA 337 Standard for DVD+R/RW and the ECMA 338 Standard for DVD-R/RW at http://www.ecma-international.org.

Notice that there are other aspects such as disc reflectivity, tracking errors and so on that also will affect the readability of a DVD disc – but for this we do not have measuring equipment available.

Also, another note is that we have scanned the discs at 4X speed, by lowering the speed to 2X (DVD-R/RW)/2.4X (DVD+R/RW) or 1X the amount of reported errors may drop on some discs. We scanned at 4X CLV due to lower speeds taking too much time.

To see if there is a connection between the reported amount of errors and readability of the discs we also include the reading curve from an Optiarc AD-7203A DVD-Writer which by default is able to read DVD±R media at 16x speed. A small speed reduction near the end is still accepted on good discs, but serious reading problems or reading failures is a bad sign.

Jitter:

Jitter is a very complex subject and even more difficult to explain when we start to use optical drives designed for the home market to measure jitter values.

Let’s first look at the DVD specification for pressed DVD discs (in the bold part courtesy of Pioneer Electronics).

“The DVD design target is that when the worst-case disc allowed by the specification, considering the economics of production, is played using the worst-case pickup that can be produced in volume economically, the byte error rate after error correction will still be 1 x 10-^-20, which is good enough to be acceptable for computer applications.

Since the above target is for "after error correction," the error correction capability must be calculated. Considering the trade-off between error correction capability and the overhead of the added redundancy, the DVD format was set to one ECC block per 32 KB. This requires a byte error rate before correction of 1 x 10^-2.
In order to achieve good economy on both the part of the discs and the playback mechanisms. The current disc tilt specification was determined as a result of the efforts on both sides.

As will be explained hereafter, it is difficult to make the error rate a specification of the disc itself. Therefore, a jitter standard is set by the DVD specifications. A simple calculation based on a normal distribution requires that the jitter rate be under 15.4%, and experimental results indicate that jitter must be under 16%, to achieve the required error rate. Since the disc tilt varies within a revolution, it was decided to adopt the design concept that jitter must remain within 16% at the instantaneous peak value of tilt. Since it is actually very difficult to measure the peak value, the concept became to measure the average jitter at under 15%, and the byte error rate at under 5 x 10-3.”

What is Jitter?

In basic terms, we could say jitter is a product of “pit and land distortion” In other words, the drive reading the disc has to compensate by means of a “tilt servo” which constantly tries to move and refocus the PUH lens for optimum tracking and tries to compensate for the imperfections of pits and lands on the pressed or recordable media. This is further compounded by the hardware used for recording and playback. Not only is the record and replay process limited by the resolution of the optical pickup, it is also horribly non-linear. In addition, the playback of the pits is subject to non-linear crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track, and also from pits in nearby tracks.

The things that causes jitter divide into three main types.

• Variation in pit length and width.
• Crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track.
• Crosstalk from pits in adjacent tracks.

 

Variation in pit length and width.

The recorded pits themselves are not perfectly accurate. Anything which causes variations in the sizes of the pits will produce jitter. A prime culprit of this is sudden variations in laser power (laser noise). If laser power varies, then the laser beam itself changes and will vary in intensity and possibly focus. This will cause the pit length and width to also vary and we now have jitter.

Crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track.

If the pits are not totally accurate, then the laser beam spot may overrun a pit and gather data from the adjacent pit in the same track, or if the “land” is to short, then the laser beam spot can be influenced by the adjacent pit and this is called inter-symbol interference. Inter-symbol interference is worse at low recording velocities, because the pits are shorter and closer together. And it is the cause of "deviation" of the pit lengths.

Crosstalk from pits in adjacent tracks.

Crosstalk between pits in adjacent tracks is caused by the laser beam spot being larger than the width of the track. It is a largely random contribution and is worse at lower recorded velocities, because the highest frequency components of the readout signal in the wanted track, with which the crosstalk is competing, are weaker.

Some other factors to consider

There are many aspects to consider when we add Recordable DVD media into the mix. We are now dealing with an organic dye, which is inherently unstable. We must also consider the equipment we are using to measure jitter is aimed at the home market. So we must also take into account variations between drives that we are unable to calibrate for such tests.

Now let’s look at some of the hardware limitations of the drives we are using to measure jitter.

If there is no tilt, then the jitter value includes components from light source noise, circuit noise, disc noise, standard interference between symbols (inter -symbol interference), and some small amount of crosstalk from the neighbouring tracks.

Next we consider manufacturing variation in the circuitry.
Variation due to the circuitry have noise-like characteristics, and increase the minimum jitter level, but are thought to have a very small effect on tilt margin. Factors such as offset in the servo circuit, however, both increase the jitter level and decrease tilt margin.

How we will measure jitter.

We will be using a Lite-On DVD writer to conduct these tests along with Nero CD-Speed at 4x scanning speed. In the screen shot below we can see a PI/PIF scan including a jitter test (the purple graph in the lower window) we carried out on a single layer DVD+R media.

Now, let's find a reasonable average jitter level. Experimental results indicate that 8% average value or less is a desirable figure, based on the DVD specification. That does not mean that jitter average values above 8% are bad. In fact, many optical drives will quite happily read recordable DVD media with jitter values of more than 14% average without any problems. Other drives, including standalone DVD players may begin to struggle reading discs with average jitter values above 10%. So there is a fairly wide range of acceptable values. One must test their own playback devices to see what they can cope with.

However, for the purpose of having a basic guideline we can use in our reviews, we present a rating system for average jitter values.

• Less than 8% (average) = Very good
• 8% - 9% (average) = good
• 9% - 12% (average) = average
• Above 12% (average) = poor

Here is an easier explanation on how to read the test results

Maybe this got too technical, and you are wondering what to look for in your Nero DiscSpeed/CD-Speed Quality Scans?

Use this as a guideline for good discs:

• PI (Parity Inner): No larger areas on the disc should exceed 280 PI-8 errors, do not worry too much about high single spikes that exceed 280.
• PIF (Parity Inner Failures): No larger areas on the disc should exceed 4 PIF-1 errors, do not worry too much about high single spikes that exceed 4.
• Jitter: An average jitter value of 8% or less is considered very good. You should not worry too much if the average value is slightly above this figure.

And as always; lower is better

 

DVD+R media compatibility and write quality:

In these tests we will be using a Lite-On iHAS422 with firmware 4L11 along with CD-Speed to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7200A with firmware 1.09 along with CD-Speed for our read-back tests.

An excellent result to start off our tests.

The result is very good.

No surprises here, an excellent result from the Verbatim 8x media manufactured by Taiyo Yuden.

PIF errors are fairly constant throughout the burn, however the result is still good.

The result is very good.

The result is good, however the disk was only burned at 8x writing speed.

DVD+RW media compatibility and write quality:

We used the same test procedures as in our DVD+R tests.

Below are our obtained results.

The result is excellent.

Summary:

The Sony BWU-300S writes DVD+R with excellent/very good quality. DVD+RW writing with our tested media was excellent. Writing performance is very good, with some fairly fast burn times when the disc was burned at 16x. However, not all the media was burned at its rated speed.

Now let’s look at DVD-R/RW performance and quality on the next page…..

 

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DVD-R media compatibility and write quality:

In these tests we will be using a Lite-On iHAS422 with firmware 4L11 along with CD-Speed to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7200A with firmware 1.09 along with CD-Speed for our read-back tests.

The result is good, other than a small area of the disc where there is a PIF cluster. After examining the disc for a flaw, there were no visible signs of a flaw in the media. We then burned a disc from another batch of media, and found the result was the same.

The result is excellent.

The result is good.

The result is excellent.

The result is good.

PI errors are high around the 2.2GB mark, and continue high for the rest of the burn. There is clearer a problem with the writing strategy for this MID. Jitter is also fairly high. PIF errors are however, commendably low. This disc is good, but we feel writing quality could be improved. 

DVD-RW media compatibility and write quality:

For this test we used the same testing procedures as in our DVD-R tests.

There is a little spike near the start of the disc, but nothing to worry about, other than this, the result is excellent.

Summary:

The Sony BWU-300S in most cases has produced good to excellent writing quality on DVD-R media. DVD-RW writing quality on our tested media was excellent.

Let’s head on to the next page where we will test DVD R DL writing performance and quality……

 

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DVD+R/-R Double Layer writing performance and quality:

The Sony BWU-300S supports the DVD+R DL/-R DL standard for writing Double Layer/Dual Layer discs with a size around 8.5 GB at a writing speed of 8x.

For these tests we wrote an image file of a DVD-Video compilation of as near full capacity as possible with CD-Speed. We then used the Lite-On iHAS422 along with CD-Speed to test the disc’s quality; we then finally ran a read-back test on our Optiarc AD-7200A using Nero CD-Speed.

DVD+R DL:

The first layer of the disc is very good indeed, the second layer is not so good. PI errors are fairly high and PIF errors are fairly constant throughout the second layer. Our reading graph also exhibits a slowdown just after the layer break. I suspect this has been caused by the PI and Jitter spike at the layer break.

DVD-R DL:

The result is good.

Summary:

The Sony BWU-300S burned our test DVD±DL media with good writing quality, although there was a slight slowdown with the reading test of the DVD+R DL test disc.

Let’s check out DVD-RAM reading and writing on the next page....

 

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DVD-RAM writing performance:

The Sony BWU-300S is a so-called Multi drive, meaning it also supports the DVD-RAM format.

This drive is one of few drives that also supports the DVD-RAM format.  Let us look at the recording side of the disc, and as you can see it has differences from the other DVD+R/W/R9 DL and DVD-R/W discs.

We can see a very fascinating pattern of darker spots. These tick marks are "address information" ("Pre-mastered Pit Header Field") which are embedded onto the disc. This is header information in front of data sector area, and is the same format as HDD and MO.

A DVD-RAM’s disc can be formatted in the following formats:

• FAT32
• UDF 1.02
• UDF 1.50
• UDF 2.00
• UDF 2.01
• UDF 2.50

By formatting a DVD-RAM disc with FAT32 it will act like a removable hard drive and all writing will be done as “background processes”. Meaning you do not have to wait for it to finish, you can start or work with other applications while the DVD-RAM is working without noticing any “hangs” or CPU slowdowns.

DVD-RAM has error correction, but also has error replacement to spare sectors as a "defect management" function. This gives higher reliability than other DVD formats.

Another advantage with DVD-RAM is that the discs can be formatted/erased/written at over 100,000 times before it will/can cause/report any errors.

Now let’s burn a test disc.

The Sony BWU-300S wrote our test Verbatim 5x DVD-RAM media in 11 minutes and 20 seconds.

Now let’s try and read back our test disc.

The Sony BWU-300S had no problems in reading back our test DVD-RAM media using a 5x CLV reading method.

We then used CD-Speed to run a Scan Disc test using the Sony BWU-300S on our burned media.

As we can see from the above screenshot, there are no errors on our disc.

Summary:

The Sony BWU-300S had no problems in reading and writing our test DVD-RAM media.

Let’s head on to the next page, where we test BD-R/RE writing performance....

 

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An Introduction to Blu-Ray

Until recently, optical disc technologies such as DVD, DVD±R, DVD±RW and DVD-RAM relied on a red laser to read and write data, the Blu-Ray format uses a blue-violet laser, which explains the name Blu-ray.

A blue-violet laser (405nm) has a shorter wavelength than a red laser (650nm); this makes it possible to focus the laser with even greater accuracy. This will allow data to be packed more tightly, so it's possible to squeeze more data on the disc even though it's the same size as a CD/DVD. This together with the change of numerical aperture to 0.85 enables Blu-ray discs to hold 25GB/50GB.

Blu-ray drives can also be made backwards compatible with CDs and DVDs through the use of a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical pickup unit.

Now let’s take a look at the track pitch and compare them with that of DVD

As we can see in the above screenshots, the storage density of Blu-ray is much higher than DVD. The Blu-ray laser beam spot is also much narrower than that of DVD.

Blu-Ray Error specification:

In the above table we present some of the specifications for reported errors on Blu-ray media. At present we have no equipment or software available for measuring these errors.

BD-R writing tests

The specifications of the Sony BWU-300S state that the drive is able to write BD-R at 8x. Let us find out how the drive really performs.

BD-R 25GB

For this test we used Nero Disc Speed to create our test disc.

For our first test, we used a 6x BD-R 25GB disc manufactured by Panasonic.

Thanks to Nikoneko Ya for providing this media.

The Sony BWU-300S burned our test media at 8x in 13 minutes and 49 seconds

The Sony BWU-300S had no problems in reading back our test disc. Now let’s try a Nero DiscSpeed Scandisc test.

As we can see, there are no errors on our test disc.

The Sony BWU-300S burned our test BD-R media from Verbatim at 4x in 22 minutes and 55 seconds.

Now let’s see if the Sony BWU-300S can read back our test disc.

The Sony BWU-300S had no problems in reading back our test disc. Now let’s try a Nero DiscSpeed Scandisc test.

As we can see, there are no errors on our test disc.

BD-R 50GB

For our next test, we wrote a 50GB BD-R disc with Nero Burning ROM.

For our first test, we used a 6x BD-R 50GB disc manufactured by Panasonic.

Thanks to Nikoneko Ya for providing this media.

The Sony BWU-300s wrote our 8x BD-R DL media at 8x in 27 minutes and 24 seconds.

Now let’s see if the Sony BWU-300S can read back our test disc.

The Sony BWU-300S had no problems in reading back our test disc.

Now let's check the disc for errors, using Nero Disk Speed (scandisk feature).

As we can see, there are no errors on our test disk.

BD-RE:

The specifications of the Sony BWU-300S state that the drive is able to write BD-RE discs at 2x. Let us find out how the drive really performs.

BD-RE 25GB

The Sony BWU-300S burned our test BD-RE media from Verbatim in 45 minutes and 17 seconds.

Now let’s see if the Sony BWU-300S can read back our test disc.

The Sony BWU-300S had no problems in reading back our test disc. Now let’s try a Nero CD-Speed Scandisc test.

As we can see, there are no errors on our test disc.

BD-RE 50GB

For our next test, we wrote a 50GB BD-RE disc with Nero Burning ROM.

The Sony BWU-300S burned our test BD-RE 50GB media from TDK in 1 hour, 90 minutes and 33 seconds.

Now let’s see if the Sony BWU-300S can read back our test disc.

The Sony BWU-300S had no problems in reading back our test disc. Now let’s try a Nero CD-Speed Scandisc test.

As we can see, there are no errors on our test disc.

Summary:

The Sony BWU-300S proved to be a very fast BD-R writer where the disc was burned at the drives maximum write speed of 8x. In fact, the Sony BWU-300S is the fastest BD-R writer we have even tested. The only down side is, we could only get hold of one BD-R disk that could burn at this speed. BD-RE writing was fairly slow.

Let’s round off this review with the Authors page, with some real world and advanced tests....

 

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Introduction:

On this page, the author of the review has the freedom to run tests that she/he thinks will enhance the review. These tests are unlike our standard tests, which we try to keep consistent throughout the whole review team, so that our reviews are as consistent as possible. This page gives the reviewer the opportunity to show some advanced and real world tests that other review team members may not be able to run.

Real World tests:

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Real world tests are designed to simulate what normal users might use their drives for in everyday use. For example, writing discs with a burning application.

Audio Extraction:

For this test we used EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to test the drive’s Audio extraction performance. As we can see from the screenshot below, the drive supports accurate stream, C2 error info and caching.

Below is the results produced by EAC:

Burst mode

Secure mode

The Sony BWU-300S was reliable when ripping our audio test CD, but the ripping speed was so very, very slow.

Nero Burning Rom:

In the following tests we will burn discs from the main media groups with Nero Burning Rom.

CD-R:

For our data writing tests, we simply set up a new compilation of 703MB using Nero Burning ROM software. Writing method used is DAO (Disc At Once), and the disc is set up as a non-multisession disc with “finalize disc” enabled. The screenshot below shows how long it takes to write a disc at the highest speed. (32x)

The Sony BWU-300S burned our test CD-R at 48x in 2 minutes and 49 seconds.

Let’s compare with other drives in our table below. Note, the other drives in our table are DVD burners, therefore, it is perhaps not fair to directly compare them.

The Sony BWU-300S was one of the fastest drives when writing our test CD-R.

DVD R:

In this test we will measure the time for writing to DVD R discs. We used Nero Burning Rom to burn an ISO compilation containing 4483MB of data. We used the Disc-At-Once write method.

The Sony BWU-300S burned our test DVD R at 16x in 5 minutes and 56 seconds.

Let’s compare with other drives in our table below. Please note, that the Sony BWU-300S is primarily a Blu-ray writer.

The Sony BWU-300S was the slowest drive when writing our test DVD R media. But again we must take into consideration, that the Sony BWU-300S is a Blu-ray writer, even then, it held its own against our DVD burners.

DVD DL:

In this test we will measure the time for writing to DVD R DL discs. We used Nero Burning Rom to burn an ISO DVD-Video compilation containing 8103MB of data. We used the Disc-At-Once write method.

The Sony BWU-300S burned our test DVD R DL at 8x in 17 minutes and 38 seconds.

Let’s compare with other drives in our table below. Once again, we note that the Sony BWU-300S is primarily a Blu-ray burner.

Even though the Sony BWU-300S is a Blu-ray drive, it was about average when writing our test DVD+R DL media. Excellent speed from a Blu-ray drive.

BD-R 25GB

For this test we compiled a HD video in Nero Vision which filled the disc to near full capacity, and then burned the resulting compilation with Nero Burning ROM.

The Sony BWU-300S burned our 25GB BD-R media at 8x in 14 minutes and 23 seconds.

Let's compare with some other Blu-ray burners below.

We don't yet have much data for comparison purposes, but we can see that the Sony BWU-300S wrote our BD-R 50GB the fastest.

Standalone DVD-Player compatibility test:

We only have 3 standalone DVD-Players available and 1 standalone DVD-RAM DVD-R recorder to test the DVD+R DL media (Book Type: DVD-ROM) and the DVD-R DL media (Book Type: DVD-R):      

• Panasonic DVD-RV32
• Panasonic SA-HT520
• Proline DVDP350
• Panasonic DMR-E50 recorder

Compatibility results, DVD Video:

All our DVD Standalone devices played the DVD+R DL media burned by the Sony BWU-300S without any problems.

Only one DVD Standalone device would play the Sony BWU-300S burned DVD-R DL media without any problems.

We would like to mention, that the compatibility issue with standalone DVD Players/Recorders and the DVD-R DL media format is caused by incompatibilities with the standalone devices used in this review, and not the Sony BWU-300S or media format used.

Standalone Blu-ray Player compatibility test:

We decided to check that our resulting Blu-ray discs could play on a Blu-ray player. For this test, we used a Sony PS3.

Verbatim BD-R 50GB

No problems

Verbatim BD-R 50GB

No problems

CSS Encrypted DVD-Video ripping tests:

Most modern DVD and Blu-ray burners don’t have Video riplock and in most cases will read a pressed DVD-Video SL disc at 16x speed. However, some drives use a CSS riplock when it comes to extracting data from the disc. If you attempt to rip a pressed DVD-Video with CSS encryption to your hard drive, then the ripping speed may be locked at a much lower speed than 16x.

To test this feature, we needed a reference from a drive that we know does not employ CSS riplock. We choose the Optiarc AD-7203A as a reference drive for this purpose and ripped a SL and DL pressed DVD-Video to our hard drive using DVDFab 6.0.1.0 (full disc option).

We should point out, that ripping and compressing a DL DVD-Video disc to DVD 5 format is quite CPU intensive. The more power your system has, the less likely your system power will affect the results. The PC used in this review is equipped with a fast Intel Quad Core processor and fast hard drives. We checked to make sure our review PC was not having an impact on the results.

Below we can see our reference results.

SL CSS encrypted DVD Video disc “Goldeneye” (Optiarc AD-7203A reference result)

Time taken = 6m:12s

DL CSS encrypted DVD Video disc “The Green Mile” (Optiarc AD-7203A reference result)

Time taken = 12m:43s

Now let’s test the Sony BWU-300S using the same testing procedures.

SL CSS encrypted DVD-Video (Goldeneye):

The Sony BWU-300S is CSS riplocked and ripped our test DVD-Video SL disc in 13 minutes and 0 seconds.

DL CSS encrypted DVD-Video (The Green Mile):

The Sony BWU-300S is CSS riplocked and ripped our test DVD-Video DL disc in 22 minutes and 15 seconds.

To compare with other drives, we present the table below.

Encrypted BD-Video ripping tests:

To test this feature, we needed a reference from a drive that we know does not employ BD-Video encryption riplock. We choose the Pioneer BDR-203BK as a reference drive for this purpose and ripped a SL and DL pressed (encrypted) BD-Video to our hard drive using DVDFab 6.0.1.0 (full disc option).

DVDFab 6.0.1.0 ripping an encrypted BD-Movie (SL)

Thanks to Fengtao software – For providing a full DVD Fab license.

Below we can see our reference results.

Reference drive

SL encrypted BD-Video "Planet Earth" (Pioneer BDR-203BK reference result)

Time taken = 16m:10s

 

DL encrypted BD-Video "Casino Royale" (Pioneer BDR-203BK reference result)

Time taken = 31m:56s

Now let’s test the Sony BWU-300S using the same testing procedures.

SL encrypted BD-Video (Planet Earth)

The Sony BWU-300S is encryption riplocked and ripped our test BD-Video SL disc in 45 minutes and 14 seconds.

DL encrypted BD-Video (Casino Royale)

The Sony BWU-300S is encryption riplocked and ripped our test BD-Video DL disc in 1 hour, 30 minutes, and 5 seconds.

We present the table below for comparison

The Sony BWU-300S was very slow when ripping our tested BD-Video media.

Advanced tests:

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To round off this review, we will run some advanced tests on the Sony BWU-300S. These tests are: “Sheep Test”, and some special disc tests.

For this test, we will use the Sheep tests made by Alexander Noé. Why is it called sheep test? That’s because the logo of the first 1 to 1 copy program called CloneCD is a sheep. When looking at supported writers, you will notice that the feature list has sheep to indicate if a feature is supported or not. In this case we are interested in the writer’s ability to backup/write weak sectors. Also called: “Correct EFM encoding of regular bit-patterns”.

• No sheep: Can’t backup any safedisc 2 versions without the help of software tricks
• 1 Sheep: Can backup safedisc 2 up to version 2.4x without software tricks
• 2 Sheep: Can backup safedisc 2, including version 2.5x
• 3 Sheep: Can write all possible weak sectors, few if any writers could do this.

One of our forum moderators Womble; has written a guide concerning the “Sheep Test” that can be found here.

In the screenshot below taken from CloneCD, we see the Sony BWU-300S supports nearly everything.

The Sony BWU-300S does not support DAO-RAW96 recording mode, which basically means, it may struggle to write uncorrected data and sub-channel data.

Sheep 2.90

Sheep 3

As we can see from the results, the Sony BWU-300S is a two sheep burner.

Overburning CD-R:

We tested the Sony BWU-300S to see if it could overburn CD-R media. The results are below.

700MB (80 minute) over-burn test:

As we can see, the Sony BWU-300S failed to overburn our test CD-R media, and the resulting disc was not readable.

MINI DVD discs:

In this section we are going to test if the Sony BWU-300S is capable of writing and reading mini DVD-RW discs with a capacity of 30 minutes/1.46 GB.

The Memorex media is made by CMC Magnetics.  Thanks to Memorex Europe for sending us this media.

The Sony BWU-300S had no problems in writing our test mini DVD-RW disc. Now let’s check if the Sony BWU-300S can also read back our test disc.

The Sony BWU-300S read back our test mini DVD-RW disc without any problems.

VCD read test

For a final test, we decided to check if the Sony BWU-300S could read a Video CD.

As we can see in the above screenshot. The Sony BWU-300S had no problems reading our test. Video CD disc.

This concludes our Sony BWU-300S review. To read the conclusion, click on the link below....

Positive:

• Fast Blu-ray burning performance at 8x max.
• Excellent CD-R writing performance
• Very good DVD burning performance.
• Very good DVD±R DL writing performance for a Blu-ray burner.
• Excellent/very good DVD±R writing quality.
• Excellent/very good CD-R/RW writing quality.
• Supports DVD-RAM read and write at 5x.
• Supports BitSetting (BookType DVD-ROM) on DVD+R DL.
• Good software package.
• Near silent operation when playing back BD and DVD movies.

Negative:

• Slow ripping speed of CD-Audio/DVD-Video/BD-Video
• Doesn’t support BitSetting for DVD+R/RW
• Burned some CD-R and DVD R media slower than its rated writing speed.
• Expensive

Conclusion:

Let us summarise the most important positive and negative points below:

The main positive points:

The Sony BWU-300S performed extremely well in our tests. BD-R writing performance was excellent and the fastest Blu-ray drive we have yet tested.

The Sony BWU-300S was able to burn all our tested CD-R/RW media with excellent/very good quality. What is more, the Sony BWU-300S offers extremely fast CD-R writing speeds, and in some cases faster than dedicated CD-RW burners.

DVD±R/RW writing quality was also of a very high standard and on most media very good/excellent.

DVD-R DL writing quality was good with our tested media and bitsetting was also supported on DVD+R DL media with BookType set to DVD-ROM. DVD±R DL writing performance was also very good, considering the Sony BWU-300S is a Blu-ray burner.

The CyberLink BD Solution software bundle should provide a good starting point for owners of the Sony BWU-300S for playing and creating BD content. Blu-ray movie playback via PowerDVD using an HDCP compliant screen was excellent.

The main negative points:

There are not many negative things to say about the Sony BWU-300S. Unfortunately, the one gripe we have with the Sony BWU-300S is its ripping performance.

CD-Audio, DVD-Video , and more importantly, BD-Video ripping performance is rather slow. The rips obtained are good quality, and the Sony BWU-300S proved to be a reliable ripping drive. But, the ripping speed is rather slow. This may not be a problem for CD-Audio and DVD-Video ripping, as many users will have a DVD burner that they can use for this purpose, and a DVD burner is very cheap to buy.

A BD-Burner on the other hand is expensive, and many users will only be able to afford a single BD Burner. So it is more important for a BD burner to also perform well as the BD-Movie ripping drive. The Sony BWU-300S is irritatingly slow in this department. We should point out that the drive performs as specified, and Sony are simply following the regulations set by the industry regarding copy protection. And, one could purchase AnyDVD, which offers a workaround for CSS/AACS riplock.

To sum up, this is what we would say:

“As a CD-R/DVD R/BD R burner, the Sony BWU-300S is a very strong performer”.

You may comment on this review below or in this forum thread.

The cheapest price we found on the Sony BWU-300S was at Amazon $417.78

Thanks to: