Ian Grayson18 October 2007, 10:41 PM
If you're backing the Blu-ray brigade in the next-gen DVD war, the latest drive from Sony is worth a look.
 It reads, it writes, it plays movies - Sony's new BWU200S Blu-ray drive |
As well as providing access to the massive storage capacities of Blu-ray DVDs, Sony's new BWU200S also allows users to play commercial movies in full high-definition magnificence on their desktop PC.
Purchasers of an earlier version of the device, the BWU100A released last year, were unable to play commercially produced movies because of challenges associated with the HDCP copy protection scheme on BluRay discs, and a lack of common software and hardware combinations capable of playing back the "protected video path".
product manager Vincent Bautista says this was not actually a problem with the drive itself but rather the lack of High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) capabilities within graphics cards. No HDCP card meant no movie playback.
"Yes, the drive is capable of playing back commercial Blu-ray movies," he told APCmag.com. "In fact, our previous model also did.
"It all comes down to whether the computer's video card is capable of commercial Blu-ray movie playback - it must be HDCP compliant. The computer display must also be HDCP compliant."
When it comes to burning discs, the new model offers 4X BD-R (Blu-ray recordable) and 16X DVD+R speeds. Sony says this cuts burning times by 50 per cent compared with the earlier model, meaning a 50GB disc can be created in around 45 minutes.
The device supports both 25GB and 50GB discs. The larger discs can swallow up to 230 minutes of 1080i high-definition video. It also happily deals with standard 4.7GB DVD+R, +RW and RAM discs as well as 8.5GB double layer versions.
Bautista says the unit ships with PowerDVD software for playback as well as CyberLink BD Solution that can be used for editing and burning video footage created using a 1080i HD video camera. Customers also get a 50GB BD-R disc in the box.
Sony believes the unit will appeal to users needing to store or back up large volumes of data, as well as those keen to watch latest-release high definition movies. It hits the market on November 1 and carries a recommended retail price of $899.00.