Tech Review

SBR-02E1S-U Bd-rom 2X USB2.0 Galaxy Blue

Every time a new optical disc technology emerges, products related to it become interesting: One reads reviews, investigates features, considers the price. For a while, and then the drives commoditize and nobody cares. I remember agonizing over which CD burner to get. Then, I spent $300 dollars for a DVD burner that burned both + and - (!). Now, it's more complicated to buy a mouse than a DVD burner. I don't think they even sell cd burners anymore.

Blu-ray is the latest optical technology. Blu-ray isn't a huge deal for me, but it only costs a couple bucks more to get Blu-ray discs on Netflix, and if I ever do purchase a movie, it will be Blu-ray.

Another change has been the emergence of the multi-PC home. In the Asymmetric household, we have a desktop running the TV in the living room. The kids use that one. My wife and I each have our own laptops.

We bought a Sony BDUX10S internal Blu-ray reader for the desktop. It worked well. Not every Netflix shipment is kid-friendly, however, and my wife wanted to see some of the movies on her laptop.

Sony BDUX10S SATA Blu-ray Disc-ROM Drive (Internal)

I needed to buy an external Blu-ray drive. The only reason this review is slightly interesting is because one really can't be sure if Blu-ray will work on their computer. One's PC has to have a compatible video card (My wife's Intel 4500 MHD video on her Dell Vostro 1320 qualifies, the "HD" standing for "High definition.") and a 2 GHZ or thereabouts processor, amongst other issues. You have have the benefit of my three hours of research below:

There are surprisingly few models available, maybe having to do with the cost of tech support. I disqualified the expensive ones that burn (as opposed to just reading) Blu-ray, as I didn't anticipate using that feature.

The portable readers I investigated were pretty cheap, under $150.00. A caution here: Many of them don't come with software. Blu-ray will not play on Media Center or any free player, and purchasing the software separately can be as expensive as the drive itself.

PowerDVD 9 Ultra

I chose the Asus SBR-02E1S-U. It comes with Cyberlink PowerDVD. It's an attractive shiny black and can set up to operate horizontally or vertically. It's different then some of the other drives in that it doesn't run completely off of the USB bus- you have to use an AC adapter. This fact is more comforting than an annoyance to me. If Asus engineers felt the need to require AC power, they must have had a good reason. Who am I to argue? I also noticed that some people on Amazon complain about other drives not working well under USB power.

The most important thing is that it works. After a software update, I successfully saw a Superman cartoon, both of the watchable Batman movies, and Independence Day ( I doubt the 100Mhz Powermac in the movie could have played Blu-ray). It worked so well, that I'm selling the internal Sony and sharing the Asus player with all three computers in my house.

Another question I had was whether the VGA connector (also RGB connector, D-sub 15, mini sub D15, and mini D15 connector) would be able to export the Blu-ray image to an external monitor (my wife's computer doesn't have DVI). It works fine, for now. Movie studios can turn on ICT copy protection which would require blu-ray to play through a digital connection meeting that DRM standard, and then we'd be sunk.

I doubt that this would happen, however. Media companies are rarely that inconsiderate.