Which Blu-Ray burner would you recommend?

unifex said:

I am thinking about adding a Blu-Ray drive to my desktop. It seems a waste of effort to buy just the player, so I am looking into the burners. As far as I can gather from the usual sources, there isn't a large variety to choose from. It seems that the Pioneer drive (apparently there is also a Plextor which people claim to be the same thing) is rated the best, while the LG is cheaper. To my surprise, Sony does not sell such drive anymore.

Anyone has a positive experience with a Blu-Ray burner? Could you recommend a good drive?

Thanks in advance.

Unifex, depending on what you use the burner for will determine the investment you are going to shell out for.
My guess is that you are wanting to create a hi def library but copying blu ray disks that are copyright is illegal. So we need to very careful here.
For the sake of argument it would be more advantageous to purchase a high capacity hard drive and a blu ray optical drive and the accompanying software for around $300 and make iso's and virtual mount for viewing on your chosen system.

Adrian said:

unifex said:

I am thinking about adding a Blu-Ray drive to my desktop. It seems a waste of effort to buy just the player, so I am looking into the burners. As far as I can gather from the usual sources, there isn't a large variety to choose from. It seems that the Pioneer drive (apparently there is also a Plextor which people claim to be the same thing) is rated the best, while the LG is cheaper. To my surprise, Sony does not sell such drive anymore.

Anyone has a positive experience with a Blu-Ray burner? Could you recommend a good drive?

Thanks in advance.

Unifex, depending on what you use the burner for will determine the investment you are going to shell out for.
My guess is that you are wanting to create a hi def library but copying blu ray disks that are copyright is illegal. So we need to very careful here.
For the sake of argument it would be more advantageous to purchase a high capacity hard drive and a blu ray optical drive and the accompanying software for around $300 and make iso's and virtual mount for viewing on your chosen system.

I agreed with Adrian, but I'll give you my opinion of brands of blu-ray.
LG is a brand, though my LG drive only reads blu ray- it writes to everything else, I have been happy with its performance. I don't see why the blu-ray burners wouldn't be good...they should be great drives.
I have considered Samsung and Lite-On drives.

My very first Blu-Ray optical (burner) drive I bought was the LG GGW-H20L.

Owned since last year, and if I remember correct, I purchased it last year (Aug 2009).

I have burned several CD/DVD/DVD DL, and a few BD-R's/BD-RE as they're very expensive at the current moment, even after 1 year

I have never had a single problem, therefore, I give it a flawless 5 star rating.

LG GGW-H20L internal Blu-ray optical drive it reads and burns an impressive number of formats, quiet, and stable.

Source

Hope this information may help you decide which blu-ray burner you may purchase in the future.
Good luck.

unifex said:

Thank you Greamreaper! Unfortunately the drive you mentioned has been discontinued. Hopefully the current LG models are of similar quality.

@Adrian

The comparison between the optical storage and hard drives has two issues in it, price per GB and failure probability.

As far as the price goes, external drives now are starting at about 70 Euros - or $100 for 1 TB. This is certainly cheaper than 40 BD-R at 3-4 Euros each.

On the other hand, it is unlikely that all 40 discs will fail at the same time, which would be the equivalent of a hard drive failure.

Basically I thought that if I want to be able to read Blu-Ray media I need an optical drive and the price difference between BD-ROMs and burners is small, so I might as well go for the burner.

Inifex, I must disagree with you as the cost of a burner vs. a bd reader is appx. $100-$150, also considering the cost of BR media which is $6-8 per disk economically it makes more sense to purchase a reader and burn a bd as an iso to a hard drive.
Just my opinion....

Well, I opted many months ago for the Bluray reader, mount iso options etc for my back-ups. This is so i can have a media center archive of my quickly accesible movies. I just get the remote control out, switch to my HD Display scroll through my collection, maybe watch the trailer first, read synopsis or just press play.
You won't need to worry about disks failing if you have the originals anyway!!!!

The HDD storage option is def the cheapest and I would argue the most reliable too.
I also make comparisons to the "old days" of burning DVDs. Invariably, some months later, several of those disks would fail to read despite the best efforts to always buy a quality brand and especially if you stuck a label on them. Imagine going through that learning curve with BD-R's.
Also, have you considered Bluary file size and 25 gig BD-R disks??? Many Bluray are 30 or even 40 gig plus in file size.
Finally, i don't have to find a space or shelf for all those back-up disks or keep the dust off them, or buy plastic wallets, print sleeves etc.

byngo said:

Well, I opted many months ago for the Bluray reader, mount iso options etc for my back-ups. This is so i can have a media center archive of my quickly accesible movies. I just get the remote control out, switch to my HD Display scroll through my collection, maybe watch the trailer first, read synopsis or just press play.
You won't need to worry about disks failing if you have the originals anyway!!!!

The HDD storage option is def the cheapest and I would argue the most reliable too.
I also make comparisons to the "old days" of ripping & burning DVDs. Invariably, some months later, several of those disks would fail to read despite the best efforts to always buy a quality brand and especially if you stuck a label on them. Imagine going through that learning curve with BD-R's.
Also, have you considered ripped Bluary file size and 25 gig BD-R disks??? Many Bluray are 30 or even 40 gig plus in file size unless you strip them down to Main Movie only.
Finally, i don't have to find a space or shelf for all those back-up disks or keep the dust off them, or buy plastic wallets, print sleeves etc.

Well said!