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Sony Optiarc announced their new 12x Blu-ray Disc writer today. I still can't figure out if the BWU-500S is an original design or a rebadge. Thoughts?

PR - http://www.cdrlabs.com/News/sony-optiar ... riter.html
Specs - http://www.cdrlabs.com/Optical-Drives/S ... riter.html

The bezel looks a lot like their old NEC based DVD writers, but the specs and dimensions are identical to the Lite-On iHBS112 and iHBS212.

Well the way they have been doing things lately it could be either one as some of their drives use the mediatek and some use NEC, even in the same models depending on the last few numbers in the model name.
Guess you better get one and see how it checks out

Newegg has got the OEM version (BD-5300S) in stock for $99.99 shipped.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827118050

Well, the review sounds nice. Fast, and the writing-quality looks good, but not perfect

Is it a Liteon-Rebadge?

With Sony/Optiarc-DVD-writers I was mostly disappointed when I tried to read DVD-media, especially RW. Often these drives had problems if the media was a bit scratched or re-written often.

Appears to be a LiteOn rebadge from what I've read. Looks like the 12X burners from Lite On, Sony, and ASUS all share a common LiteOn platform. Plextor and Pioneer are shared. LG has their own 12X burner. HP and Memorex have 12X burners too, but I'm not sure who they are sourced from.

I forgot to mention good review BTW!

Thanks Jim!

Jim wrote:Appears to be a LiteOn rebadge from what I've read. Looks like the 12X burners from Lite On, Sony, and ASUS all share a common LiteOn platform. Plextor and Pioneer are shared. LG has their own 12X burner. HP and Memorex have 12X burners too, but I'm not sure who they are sourced from.

There are some slight physical differences and in the list of supported media, but for the most part, they are the same drive. HP is like Plextor.. they've essentially licensed their name to Lite-On for optical drives. I'm guessing Memorex is too as they go with the lowest bidder for their drives.

Oh yeah.. that's definitely a Lite-On rebadge.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827119008

Jim wrote:Plextor and Pioneer are shared.

Don´t understand, what that means? Do Plextor or Pioneer together build the drives?

Nice review indeed, Ian

Scour wrote:Don´t understand, what that means? Do Plextor or Pioneer together build the drives?

Lite-On didn't have a 12x BD writer when Plextor introduced the PX-B940SA so they rebadged a Pioneer BDR-205. They've now released the PX-B950SA which is based on the Lite-On iHBS212.

Ah, ok

Will Pioneer release some drives made by their own or also rebadge in future?

Scour wrote:Ah, ok

Will Pioneer release some drives made by their own or also rebadge in future?

You mean Plextor?

Not sure

Nice review, Ian!

The links to the BD-R write graphs and Transfer Rate tests seem to be dead- I get a 404 on all of them.

Does the drive do PI/PIF scans on DVDs?

G

MediumRare wrote:The links to the BD-R write graphs and Transfer Rate tests seem to be dead- I get a 404 on all of them.

Sorry about that. You should be able to access them now. And yeah.. it does write quality tests for DVD and CD too.

Scour, I don't think we'll ever see another original Plextor drive. At the most, we're going to continue to get enthusiast oriented utilities like PlexUtilities that tap into the capabilities of Lite-On based drives.

So the Plextor and Pioneer-drives are also rebadged?

Pioneer still makes their own. Plextor rebadges them.

Thats what I wanted to know. This is the reason for my question "Will Pioneer release some drives made by their own or also rebadge in future?"

I meant Pioneer, because Plextor rebadges since years

I really don't know. So far, they've been making all their own Blu-ray drives, but some of their DVD writers have been based on designs from companies like ASUS.

Or in the opposite

A friend have an Asus 1608P, which is designed by Pioneer.

I think the 116/216 was the last real Pioneer DVD-drive, atm it´s somewhat of Asus/Liteon