Pioneer Blu-ray PC drive

[navychop]

The BDC-2202, $299 MSRP, will in fact play Blu-ray movies, with the included software, as well as burn CD/DVD discs. More here.

 

[teachsac]

Nice link,

Looks like a great price.

S~

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Very interesting. Good find.

Now imagine if it could WRITE BR, and not just DVD/CD.... Talk about changing the way we do backups...

 

[navychop]

That's what I'm waiting for at work. It takes over 4.5 hours to do a tape backup today.

But I'd imagine the price of a writer might be a tad higher.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

That's what I'm waiting for at work. It takes over 4.5 hours to do a tape backup today.

But I'd imagine the price of a writer might be a tad higher.

Yeah, for sure. But only in the short-term hopefully.

 

[JoeSp]

How long before we start seeing BD standalones in this price range if they can deliver a PC BD drive at this price. I was just in BB and they have the Samsung BD1000 at $663. We should at least be able to see a BD standalone under $500 soon -- maybe this summer.

 

[CochiseGuy]

How long before we start seeing BD standalones in this price range if they can deliver a PC BD drive at this price. I was just in BB and they have the Samsung BD1000 at $663. We should at least be able to see a BD standalone under $500 soon -- maybe this summer.

Amazon has the Samsung DB1000 for $455. You can pick one up on eBay for $400 or less, although they're usually the factory "refurbished" ones, but factory sealed with Samsung warranty. Even more surprising to me is you can get a new, factory sealed PS3 for $400-$500; there's apparently a glut of them.

Joe, don't you dare tell a soul, but I'm considering going dual format if I can snag one of those good deals on eBay - for those occasional new releases I can't enjoy on HD DVD.

I don't know about those under $500 retail BD players this summer, but there are some better prices to be found on both formats these days. I don't quite understand the thinking of those who say "I won't buy either format until there's only one!" I kind of felt that way about the Dish 622 - "I'm not paying $500 for something I can only use on Dish's network!" (I think they're less now). But the point is - any home theater equipment you purchase can become obsolete. If you want to enjoy High Def movie disks, decide what your price range is and see what you can find.

 

[teachsac]

Joe, don't you dare tell a soul, but I'm considering going dual format if I can snag one of those good deals on eBay - for those occasional new releases I can't enjoy on HD DVD.

Being neutral isn't all that bad. That is the sign of a true enthusiast. Enjoy the best of both worlds.

S~

 

[navychop]

Yes, I might go with a dual format player, if it really has full capabilities for both, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I'd probably do that sooner than I would buy a single format player, as I wait for things to start to shake out.

But then, that might be the kool-aid talking.

 

[vurbano]

How long before we start seeing BD standalones in this price range if they can deliver a PC BD drive at this price.

$299.00?? Id say 2 years.

 

[JoeSp]

Well, I am looking hard at the Toshiba HD player. If you are a real HD fan then why not enjoy both worlds while they last. Esecially if you don't have to give up an arm or leg to enjoy. Definately in agreement here with Navychop!

On another note, I record all of my OTA HD on my 622 from Fox, CBS, NBC and CBS and then watch at a later time in order to skip all the commercials. After using the 622 this way I can not stand to watch anything with commercials. I even recorded the Suns - Spurs game while picking up my wife's best friend at the airport. They had to go back to pick up lugguge that came in on another flight and I stayed home and watched the entire game (about 95 minutes total) by skipping all the commercials and bs. I really enjoyed the game that way.

 

[navychop]

Yes- I can't remember the last time we watched something live. Too little time to sit thru commercials selling something I'd never buy. But I must admit, sometimes we jump back to catch the odd commercial- upcoming program, humor, etc.

 

[CochiseGuy]

Well, I am looking hard at the Toshiba HD player. If you are a real HD fan then why not enjoy both worlds while they last. Esecially if you don't have to give up an arm or leg to enjoy. Definately in agreement here with Navychop!

OH my gosh, what's this world coming to?

I came with $5 & 50 seconds of snagging a Philips BDP9000 BD player for under $400 last night on eBay; I was on the phone, TV & laptop all going on at the same time or it would have been mine. Still watching another one.

On another note, I record all of my OTA HD on my 622 from Fox, CBS, NBC and CBS and then watch at a later time in order to skip all the commercials. After using the 622 this way I can not stand to watch anything with commercials. I even recorded the Suns - Spurs game while picking up my wife's best friend at the airport. They had to go back to pick up lugguge that came in on another flight and I stayed home and watched the entire game (about 95 minutes total) by skipping all the commercials and bs. I really enjoyed the game that way.

I'm stubborn I guess, and really don't watch Dish that much. I keep thinking of canceling it, but the only sport I like is football & I'm a real football nut and I know I'll be missing ESPN HD this fall if I cancel. 90% of my TV viewing is OTA antenna network broadcasts, and I have a PC with HDTV tuner card for recording & playback.

So Navychop, if Joe gets an HD DVD and I get a Blu-ray, you're going to have to put those CC Reward points to use and make the plunge into one of them.

 

[navychop]

Actually, I DO have quite a few CC Reward points. Hmmm........

Still, not for 2-3 months, at least.

 

[John Kotches]

That's what I'm waiting for at work. It takes over 4.5 hours to do a tape backup today.

But I'd imagine the price of a writer might be a tad higher.

What the hell are you using for a tape drive?

High performance tape drives will dramatically outperform a any Blu-Ray burner. Even LTO2 which is several years old routinely writes at > 60 MB/second across a 100 base T network. Direct attached is in the vicinity of 90 MB/second on an Ultra160 channel. These are 9x and 14x Blu-ray speeds respectively.

Additionally, media costs are way cheaper per GB than Blu-ray. Keep in mind, I am backing up about 26TB / month across 4 drives. I do this in about 6 hours for incrementals daily (26 servers) and about 12 hours for full backups on the weekends.

LTO2 tapes are available for about ~$32/each and right on < $30/each in bulk. These are for 200GB native, 400GB compressed. So you'd need 4 double layer Blu-ray discs and add software compression to get there. Unfortunately, software compression isn't nearly as efficient as hardware compression at that rate so you'd be limited in your backup capability.

Blu-ray media is about 1.5x the cost per piece of media and 1/4 the raw storage capacity. That makes it 6x more expensive.

By the time you scale Blu-ray up to the required levels it is not cheaper by any stretch of the imagination than tape backup.

The only advantage it has is in random access. There are applications where this is apropos -- but there is a reason that tape is king in the backup world.

I can buy an LTO2 drive for about $1000. I can buy 1TB of raw capacity media for another $150. Call it $1200.

To get the same throughput, I need 9 Blu-ray burners (at $2000($500x4)) and 4 pieces of media ($180) to equal the speed and capacity of a several years old LTO2 tape drive. LTO3 is at market and it's roughly double the speed and capacity of LTO2. This just furthers the gap between tape and optical.

Yes, I do think about stuff like this on a regular basis, why do you ask?

 

[navychop]

"What the hell are you using for a tape drive?"

DLT VS1 (80GB/160GB) from Dell on our Dell server. This 1/2" tape solution was the best available (cost effective) option when we bought it. I run it overnight- 4.5 hours for backup and verify. IIRC it claims 28 GB/hr speed, but I don't believe in practice it achieves that. Dell's LTO-2 drives are rated at 35MBps sustained and cost between two and four thousand dollars. Granted, there is the aftermarket.

My experience with tape has been bad. Everything goes well, no error messages about lost data, but when you try to restore a file- good luck. I'd say almost half the time, it could not be restored. That's why I normally run full, not incremental, of the data areas and use a different tape for each day of the week. Plus special backups. And also why I use RAID on our server. Yes, our only server, we're a small business. Granted, my worst experiences were many years ago on quarter inch tape.

With care, a single dual layer BD should suffice for us, and real world speed should not be much different in the backup phase, and will only increase. Media storage would be greatly reduced and I simply feel that it would be more reliable- and faster to restore individual files when that becomes necessary.

For us, I think the Blu-ray backup could be the better solution, especially when the drives might cost only $300.