# blu ray bd-rom writers "are they worth it"?



## dr emulator (madmax) (Apr 29, 2010)

i recently bought myself one of these 
LG SUPER MULTI BLUE internal Blu-ray Disc Rewriter (Model no BH10LS30)
£129.99 or about 199.82 US$ (using googles conversion) 

i bought the drive on a spur of the moment thing (i didn't intend to buy one ) 
but i liked the packaging and the speed 
(the other drives on the shelf were only 8x speed )

and because of the capacity of the discs even at the 23gb per disc that they can hold, 
it's still nearly five times as much data per disc as a dvd can hold, saving having endless discs around

(remembering that " the size stated on the packaging" isn't the same as a pc's harddrive size)

now from the small amount of time i've had the drive it seems to be ok 
only problem is the discs, 

they are very expensive and hard to get hold of 

example price:

Panasonic 25GB recordable BD-R Blu-ray disc 3 pack. £24.99 or 38.16 US$
which works out to about £8.33 or 12.72 US$ 
and is a lot more than a pack of dvd discs 
(i recently got 2 packs of 50 verbatim 16x speed dvd discs for the same price)

there is also the Panasonic 50GB recordable BD-R Blu-ray disc 2 pack, 
at the same price as the above 
which makes them slightly more expensive for a massive 47 gigabytes of storage space per disc


the shop i got the drive from only sells maxell bd-roms, which according to the manufacturer LG aren't compatible


> Thank you for contacting LG Electronics. We are delighted to hear from you as our Valued Customer.
> 
> I will gladly assist you with your inquiry.
> The unit might be able to work with this media; however, LG may not guarantee the full functionality in this media since this brand is not recommended for that format.  I will send you the list of brands recommended on each format to assure full functionality:
> ...


so in my view the above is something to consider before purchasing such an expensive drive.

(only one shop sells the above discs in my town, afaik)
and beleive me i've looked 


now the writer i bought will write a 2x speed 23.5 gb rewritable disc in about 2hours  
which is a long time 

(bear in mind though, that i only have a 2.16 ghz xp athlon processor, so it might have been quicker on a dual or quad core)

but it can write to one time only discs (bd-rom) at up to 10x speed 
which is what i bought it for


so what do you guys think ?

have i bought a white elephant 
or do you think these writers are worth it?

have you bought one of these drives and are happy with it 
or do you wish you'd never bothered and think it was a huge waste of money

i'd like to hear from 


anyone who want's to comment here who isn't a member can join in by signing up "here" 
(it's free and will only take a minute to do so) 
and tell me how good or bad these drives are, 
what problems you've encountered, 
i'e finding discs,
disc errors, faulty discs 
and what workarounds you had to implement to sort things out 
basicaly anything to do with bd-rom writers


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## cadaveca (Apr 29, 2010)

Cost is too high. Media degrades over time, so to me, HDD's are more practical that BD-roms, ATM.

I've got the same burner, sitting in it's box. I'm using the LG BD-ROM drive, and had aspirations of copying discs using hte two, but that doesn't work.

haven't had any issues...other than I'm in the same boat as you...nobody sells discs.


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## Phxprovost (Apr 29, 2010)

in the future? sure, right now? no


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## JATownes (Apr 29, 2010)

I personally think HDD and Flash drives are so cheap that Blu-ray media is a waste until the price drops.   I have started using HDD as hot-swap for storage and tranferring files to my buddies.


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## dr emulator (madmax) (Apr 29, 2010)

cadaveca said:


> Cost is too high. Media degrades over time, so to me, HDD's are more practical that BD-roms, ATM.
> 
> I've got the same burner, sitting in it's box. I'm using the LG BD-ROM drive, and had aspirations of copying discs using hte two, but that doesn't work.
> 
> haven't had any issues...other than I'm in the same boat as you...nobody sells discs.



i hear ya 

i'm very tempted to take it back to the shop as i haven't used the bd-rom disc that came with it, or the software as of yet
 
it's not so much the price of the discs it's how much they are likely to change 
reason behind that thought is they keep making the discs bigger 


> Blu-Ray Capacity Increased.
> The specification governing the storage capacity of blu-ray discs has been officially increased to 128 GB for single write discs and 100 GB for re-writable discs. The new format, called BDXL, goes three to four layers deep on the disc and requires a more powerful laser. Unfortunately this means that existing blu-ray equipment will not be able to read or write to BDXL discs. The need for new equipment, combined with the fact that movies have no trouble squeezing onto current 50 GB Blu-Ray discs, will probably severely hamper adoption in the near term.


source


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## dr emulator (madmax) (Apr 30, 2010)

just looked closer at the website, 
and the panasonic discs at £8.33 or 12.72 US$ are only 1-4x speed :shadedshu 
so i wonder how much the 1-10x are


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## dr emulator (madmax) (Apr 30, 2010)

well i'm a happy camper 
i now have found a source for verbatim bd-r discs at £5.00 or 7.6665 US$
they are only 4x speed but that is enough 

the shop was called staples (i did ask if i could put the name up) 
they have stores in the uk and in the us (i'm not sure where else they are in the world) 
but hopefully this will help others 

verbatim as far as i know are very good manufacturers of discs, 
i have bought endless discs in the past, i'e dvd's cd's and rewritables, and all are still ok

i went to three big stores before popping into staples, all sold dvd discs, but not compatible bd-roms 
even the shops that had the Blu-ray Disc Recorders with 500GB Hard Drives, didn't stock them and they cost an average of £549.99 - £749.99 or 843.29 US$ - 1 149.95 US$ 

so again i hope to hear from anyone else who has had trouble getting discs, and whether you've managed to find some in your local store 

speak to ya all soon


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## hat (May 1, 2010)

Still way too expensive. When I can get a burner for $50 or less and a pack of discs for $30 or less (50 pack), then it may be worth it.

At this point, I would rather invest in an external drive.


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## MN12BIRD (May 1, 2010)

Bah too expensive and slow.  I don't want to waste my time ripping and burning HD video.  Most people rip the BD movies anyway.  I can download nice 720p rips for free


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## dr emulator (madmax) (May 1, 2010)

i suppose it's a personal choice but i do get where your coming from 
as for multi packs of discs, i have seen them, but i don't think they are a good idea, as discs do get scratched when their in multipacks, i prefer them in jewel cases 

ofcause this does throw up the question as to how reliable the two are, i'e harddrives vs bd-rom discs

oh and you've got to remember i live in the uk, and some prices are always higher here than in the us


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## EastCoasthandle (May 1, 2010)

1. The cost is too high and the media in and of itself is not the only means of storing and transporting large quantities of data.
2. Dated media is not cost effective
3. Read, write and re-write speeds are simply to slow for large content
4. Cumbersome when compared to other methods to store and transport data


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## digibucc (May 1, 2010)

i love my commercial blu-rays but for any kind of personal use i just can't see the sense. a single 32gb flash drive costs less than the bd burner, and is faster and easier to use


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## theonedub (May 1, 2010)

I had noticed that the prices are coming down to more reasonable levels, but then I realized I don't even burn DVDs and have no use for archiving on BR-D when terabyte+ drives are extremely cheap right now. 

booo to piracy


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## EastCoasthandle (May 1, 2010)

The era of different types of compact flash is over.  This is where that media simply couldn't compete against dvd.   Now you have thumb drives that can store nearly as much as a HD now and can write/read/copy that data above 2x of the speed of the fastest dvd type of drive.  Face it, dvd type of media has hit floppy status.  I won't be surprised if another media takes its place in the near future.  Will it be thumb drives?  Hard to say but IMO it's not out the question to go to your local game store, buy a game, stick your 100Gig thumb drive into some sort of data center and download the game within a few seconds.


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## dr emulator (madmax) (May 1, 2010)

erm i wasn't talking of piracy just simple backups of data 
besides the fact we aren't allowed to talk about it, bd-roms have encription keys which do prevent piracy.

yes i get ya about thumb drives (i used to use a 128mb memory stick to transfer files back home when i went round my uncles, i often needed to zip stuff up to get certain media back home 
then i was given a 1 gig sandisk compact flash 

as for drive costs most don't add that into the equation tbh ,
yes i know you can get dvd writers for about £24.99 or 38.31 us$ and decent disks for about about 50p (0.76 us$)
but bd-rom is a new gadget (like a lot of things you don't need but you buy anyway)


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## theonedub (May 1, 2010)

I was referring to you about that, just to clarify.


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## rpsgc (May 1, 2010)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Hard to say but IMO it's not out the question to go to your local game store, buy a game, stick your 100Gig thumb drive into some sort of data center and download the game within a few seconds.



Or a relatively fast >16GB SDHC card (with included USB reader, or not).


Flash media doesn't get scratched (buying games from the UK only to find the disks so scratched I have to download the ISO from a torrent is awesome).


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## dr emulator (madmax) (Oct 5, 2010)

well i burnt a disc at 4 x speed using a 4x speed disc and it took about 15-16 mins on the new i7 
(it had taken over 2 1/5 hours on the old pc ) 
only problem was that a piece of dirt was on the disc, and the laser has left a pinhead sized mark on the damned disc so i guess that's borked

so my point? 

always check that your drive tray is clean first


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## remixedcat (Nov 24, 2010)

External drives---->Much cheaper and easier. No long die-of-old-age-waiting for the disc to be burnt.... No scratched discs and bye-bye-data.... and not everyone has blu-ray drives so using it on another/someone else's compie is harder..... I could go on.....

and for quick data transport pen drives are best. I got a 16GB sandisk cruiser for 40 at wal-mart and gonna get an even larger one later. That will have my windows 7 on it and some recovery tools and crucial programs. Much better then shuffling discs around and having them break. 

I also got a small  sized external HD. it's 160GB. it was only 20 bucks.


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## hat (Nov 24, 2010)

Heh, I posted in this thread back in April...

Anyways, the cheapest burner is available on newegg for $80, and a 25 pack of 25GB 4x discs costs $20. Not too sure about the quality of either. for the price of the above combo, you can have a 2TB hard drive (a slow one meant for storage, but still infinitely faster than optical discs). I guess even today it's still only going to be worth it if you do a *lot* of burning.


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## AsRock (Nov 24, 2010)

They are becoming worth it as it was only a blu ray burner for $65 now and you can buy a spindle of 20 for $30 ( good branded disks ) now on egg.


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## H82LUZ73 (Nov 24, 2010)

For me it is cheaper to buy a 1tb drive and use it for storage,Drive is $58.99 and the BD-R is $169 and then around $50 more discs...no thanks,I do have a player in my computer but i`m a movie junkie Why spend that when i can get 2 1tb drives for less.


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## dark2099 (Nov 24, 2010)

I actually did something similar a few months back, grabbed an LG BluRay writer, have yet to actually burn a bluray, used it to watch some, but yea.  Personally, I'd say keep it since you have it.  Mind you that blurays still aren't as popular as DVDs, so you might not use it too much now, but could with in the next 6 months to a year.  Technology is advancing fast, and always getting cheaper.


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## dhdude (Nov 24, 2010)

I've been considering one, been watching the prices fall steadily over the last few months... my DVD rewriter is on the way out, not sure whether to spend £80+ on a Blu-Ray burner or just 50 for a decent BR Reader/DVD RW combo... :/


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## AsRock (Nov 25, 2010)

H82LUZ73 said:


> For me it is cheaper to buy a 1tb drive and use it for storage,Drive is $58.99 and the BD-R is $169 and then around $50 more discs...no thanks,I do have a player in my computer but i`m a movie junkie Why spend that when i can get 2 1tb drives for less.



Prices are not what they used to be including the disks.

LG  WH10LS30K 10X Blu-ray Burner - LightScribe Sup...

Verbatim 25GB 2X BD-R LTH 20 Packs Spindle Disc (u...


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## pantherx12 (Nov 25, 2010)

In the UK it's cheaper to buy a 500gb HDD for back up/file transfers/putting your films on etc.
( £30 vs £60 or so for a blue ray drive + the money for the discs)

Screw blue ray!


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## AsRock (Nov 25, 2010)

pantherx12 said:


> In the UK it's cheaper to buy a 500gb HDD for back up/file transfers/putting your films on etc.
> ( £30 vs £60 or so for a blue ray drive + the money for the discs)
> 
> Screw blue ray!



But ya cannot complain at 25GB per disk. And as long as you take care of them there's not much to go wrong unlike HDD's.

I guess it just depends on whats being backed up in the 1st place.


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## micropage7 (Nov 25, 2010)

i dunno, bluray still out of range for me and for now just some that use bluray, the most still run on DVD although bluray has spinned for several years. Just wait and see, but for now i dont interested much on bluray :shadedshu


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