Pioneer Unveils BDR-PR1 Blu-ray Writer Drive
 

Pioneer unveiled a new internal Blu-ray writer drive in the 5.25" form-factor, the BDR-PR1. The drive is designed keeping data archival in mind, more than Blu-ray video, since with increase in capacities of an archive media, so does the risk of random writing errors that destroy data in the archive. Stringent quality control is implemented in selection of its parts, and testing of the drive. Its mechanism also works to reduce recording variability, ensuring higher archive fidelity. In other words, it trades off speed for quality of recording.

The Pioneer BDR-PR1 features SATA 3 Gb/s interface, which is rather new for optical drives. It can write BD-R single-layer, BD-R double-layer (50 GB), and BD-R (LtH) at 6X, single and double-layer BD-RE at 2X, DVD±R single-layer at 16X, and DVD±R double-layer at 8X. CD-R is written at 40X. The drive packs a 4 MB write cache. It is slated for market release towards the end of this month, its pricing is not fixed.

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All we need now is cheaper BD media, such as make tbem the same price as DVD-R's for example.

+1 on that. I also think lowering the price on BD media would help with the sales by a lot. People these days just dont see the point in buying BD media, if the price/Gb ratio is really bad.

For the price of this unit + disks, you are 10x time better with a HDD; internal or external.

Meh.

My 64GB USB 3.0 stick holds more data, reads/writes MUCH faster, is portable, and works with any computer with a USB slot.

I own an bluray recorder and media in my place cost 2$ the 25GB single layer disc, actually 22GB capacity.

While it doesn't replace a pendrive, I found bluray discs to be much more scratch resistant than a DVD, and very appropiate to make backups of data you want to keep but you don't want to pay a lot of money for it. I also have rewritable blurays discs, and while they take forever to burn (they are 2X max speed) they are ok

As a bluray reader it makes a lot of sense. Today you buy a movie in bluray3D and it comes with bluray 2D disc and DVD as bonuses, and ultraviolet online copy if you reside in the U.S.