FYI: I copied over my review from the slot load, 'coz I actually got a TRAY LOAD version, not a SLOT-LOAD one. I like the safety of having an emergency eject hole. Otherwise, everything holds true.=============================
I got this DIGISTOR Blu-Ray burner for my HD videos. I am a semi-professional videographer and I record some of my shoots/subjects/videos in High-Definition. At one point earlier this year, I realized that burning to DVDs just will not be enough for HD content the 4-something gigabytes just won't cut it.
I decided to get DIGISTOR's blu-ray burner because I got one of their their DVD burners as well External USB 2.0 Powered 8x DVD Burner by DIGISTOR and I saw from their website that they had a similarly designed Blu-Ray burner.
The reason I was so happy with the DVD burner was that it did not need a power cord for it. I am happy to say that this Blu-Ray burner is the same no power cord. I use it for my HD video editing, connected to my PC. I also bring it around, it is very light and portable, on my shoots should there be a need to burn output onsite.
It's plug-and-play, no need for drivers Vista and Windows 7 supports blu-ray natively. And I have yet to encounter a bad burn on this drive. Something to do with it's battery powered operation, but I also made sure it has enough power for burning, I got the dual USB accessory.
I'm very happy with the product.
This DIGISTOR Blu-ray burner is perfect for our sneakernet and mixed-OS operations, it's external USB 2. bus powered that we can take from one room/suite to the other without worrying about compatibility. it's also pretty rugged despite the plastic enclosure, it has been dropped once since yet no hiccups. Blu-ray data burning and reading is native on both Windows PC (we're running Vista and Windows 7) and Mac OS X (we have 10.3.9, 10.4.11 and 10.6.3).
Now with this external Blu-ray burner, we have minimized the number of discs that we have to handle, we have also minimized the time spent on managing a backup/archiving session since we just drop all the data to one disc, no need to calculate how many discs to use and how to split the data into several discs.
Hope this review helps.
Buy DIGISTOR External Blu-ray Burner USB 2.0 with Multimedia & Archive Suites (Tray Load) Now
Reliable blu ray burner is a great deal for the price. Only drawback is that I have not had any luck with the included software burning blu rays. I am using a properly updated version of adobe encore cs4 and it works amazingly well.Update
Digistor contacted me to help me figure out how to properly work with the included software. Great customer service. Highly recommendedThis DIGISTOR Blu-ray Tray-Load Blu-ray burner works very well as advertised, and the Roxio 10 software that came with it even includes the updated version (10.08, if I recall correctly). It seems to burn discs very well at a slower speed, and even though the resulting Blu-ray disc has some 'burned image' differences in 'color depth' (may be a ring slightly lighter on the burn) might be due to the sensitivity or region of the disc's dye, but only time will tell whether this affects readability.
The drive will draw too much power when connected to the USB ports on the monitor (you have to restart or shut down Mac--logging off won't allow the system to recognize powering on the drive), so using the front or back USB ports on the tower is required for the 'double' USB connection. This ensures unlimited burning without worry of the battery running down too low, but if you want to burn via a slower BUS speed, use the single USB that will recharge the battery only when the drive is idle, and therefore draws less power (demand).
When viewing a video file, the drive will slow down to help conserve the battery a little, but while the audio plays fine, the video will stutter or lag (drop frames) then the RPM picks up to play 'catch-up,' so probably playing Blu-ray movies on this thing isn't ideal due to slower read speed. You should probably have a Blu-ray player (with a better cache and/or read speed) connected to your TV for that purpose anyway. Maybe an internal Blu-ray drive in a computer with a higher read speed would be ideal, so I am assuming that this DIGISTOR has a limited buffer/cache and read speed. You can burn up to 6X but for readability reasons I use 2X, which takes about 45-50 minutes with 25 GB of data (capacity). Haven't tried burning HD to Blu-ray yet. Remember, writing to the disc is fine, but playback, you might as well copy the video (such as something you shot with a digital camera) to the hard drive and go from there.
This drive is very much like that in a laptop computer and probably built from the same components and configuration (it is more like a CD player, such as Walkman) though a bit thinner. You have to make sure to handle a blank disc on the edges and carefully press down in the center to lock the disc onto the spindle. Ejection can be done via the front button or by computer command (often the eject button on the keyboard if it has one). Very lightweight too. You can use AC power but doesn't come with an AC cord.
Avoid LTH discs if possible. The manufacturer claims they can be burned but don't last as long and are less compatible than 'regular' Blu-ray because LTH uses organic dyes, whatever chemistry that is. LTH discs are golden but the discs you want to use are dark navy blue or dark gray-black. I mistakenly bought Verbatim LTH and haven't used them--then bought the non-LTH type, which consequently, cost more, but will be more likely to last. Both types are much more resistant to scratches like commercial 'stamped' discs. The included Blu-ray disc is dark navy blue where written, but more of a dark blue-gray color where blank or unwritten bits.
All of the above said, I would give this drive 4.5 out of 5 stars, but convenience a 5, so overall a five-star review on this product. Great for someone who has many gigabytes of video files otherwise using up several DVD-Rs or many CD-Rs (with HD video, it is easy to record long enough it is larger than 700 MB, the capacity of standard CD-R).
Given the technical specifications and portability, power and playback limitations are expected, so please consider whether these are of concern to you. If not, this drive is recommended, although a bit on the expensive side.
Hope this helps, and good luck.
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Darn thing works as advertised. Only crummy part is that the cost of the bluray media is so rediculously super expensive that I do not think bluray recording will jump to mainstream.On the other hand, the thing is fast and very very quiet compared to my other external slim dvd+R/-R recorder. And it also has a built in battery. I was hoping to have an eSATA version though but oh well. Also, for the price, it would be nice if it comes with a standard power adapter that you plug into a wall instead of the dual-heal to dual-USB connector. Nevertheless, it was well worth the purchase.
I got the tray-load version because it was faster than the slot load. If you need to decide, get the tray load. The slot load is somehow 4x max recording while the tray load is 6x max. I don't think it matters though since media out there can only go 4x fast. However, maybe future media will be faster than 4x.
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