For the BWU-100A's software bundle, Sony has turned to CyberLink. The CD that comes with the drive contains the CyberLink BD Solution suite which includes PowerProducer, PowerDirector, Power2Go, PowerBackup, Medi@Show, InstantBurn, LabelPrint and PowerDVD BD.

CyberLink PowerProducer 3 BD Edition - With CyberLink's PowerProducer you can create your own movie discs quickly and easily. Right from the start, this wizard based software gives you a number of options to select from. From here you can choose to produce a new movie disc, edit an existing one or record video directly to CD, DVD or BD.

PowerProducer lets you create a number of different movie discs. Looking at the menu below, you can choose to create a CD, DVD, or BD. The software also supports various disc capacities and formats including DVD-VR, DVD+VR and BDAV.

While you can capture your own video, PowerProducer will also let you add any MPEG-1, MPEG-2, WMV or DivX video clip to your project. Once you have them imported, you can use the built in editor to trim, merge or split your video clips or add special effects. PowerProducer also allows you to set chapters within the video content and add your own custom menus, backgrounds, fonts and titles.

CyberLink PowerDirector 5 SE-Plus - The BWU-100A also comes with CyberLink's video editing software, PowerDirector. To create your own custom movies, simply drag and drop video footage onto the editing timeline and then add scene transitions, background music, or title effects.

You can also use PowerDirector's "magic" editing tools to clean up video clips and images, condense long video segments and apply pre-designed style templates. When you're done editing your video, you have the option to write it back to DV tape, save it to your hard drive, create a streaming file or burn it to disc using PowerProducer.

CyberLink Power2Go 5 - Power2Go is the main disc burning program included with the BWU-100A. With this software, users can create various types of CD's, DVD's and BD's or make backups of existing discs. Power2Go also offers enhanced security features, allowing you to password protect and encrypt your data discs.

CyberLink PowerBackup 2.5 - If you're looking for a quick and easy way to backup your data, PowerBackup is the answer. Depending on your needs, PowerBackup can do full, differential, and incremental backups as well as fast stream-to-disc archiving.

Backup jobs can be scheduled to run at regular intervals so the data is always protected. PowerBackup also offers more advanced features like file filtering, compression and password protection.

CyberLink Medi@Show 3 -
With Medi@Show, you can create, show and share multimedia presentations. Simply drag and drop images, video, audio clips or even PowerPoint files into your presentation and then use the storyboard to rearrange the clips into the order you want. When you're done you can add special effects to your presentation and then save it as an executable file, a screen saver or make it ready for internet publication.

CyberLink InstantBurn 5 - InstantBurn is CyberLink's packet writing software. Like Roxio's Drag-to-Disc or Nero's InCD, it lets a person to use their CD, DVD or BD writer as if it was another hard drive or a huge floppy disk.

CyberLink LabelPrint 2 - CyberLink LabelPrint is an intuitive application that lets you design and print stylish CD/DVD labels in four easy steps. Just select your template type, disc information, text layout, background image, and print destination.

CyberLink PowerDVD 6.6 BD - CyberLink's PowerDVD is one of the more popular software DVD players on the market right now. Along with support for Blu-ray Discs, it can be used to play back CD's and DVD's as well as other multimedia formats including DivX.


The version of PowerDVD bundled with the BWU-100A cannot play back commercial Blu-ray Discs protected by AACS. If you want to do this, you will need to upgrade the software first. This upgrade is available for free and can be downloaded from Sony's website.

When it comes to features, the Sony BWU-100A has all of its bases covered. The drive can read and write to single and dual layer BD media at 2x and is backwards compatible with all major CD and DVD formats, including DVD-RAM. The BWU-100A also includes features like an 8MB buffer, Power-Burn buffer underrun protection and a great software bundle from CyberLink. Unfortunately, it lacks bitsetting support for DVD+RW media. Even then, the Sony BWU-100A scores a solid 8 out of 10 for its features.