Our first experiences with the combo drive as a DVD recorder have been surprisingly good. I say surprisingly as we kinda expected the DVD recording to be a secondary feature for this drive, but apparently it has done a damn good job so far. As mentioned earlier, the recording speed is limited to 12x using the Z-CLV method (Zone Constant Linear Velocity). So far we have thrown half a dozen types of DVD recordable media in to this drive, and so far it has done a great job. In every case the quality has been comparable to Pioneer’s recent DVD recorder models (DVR-215, DVR-115) and in some cases the BDC-202 has produced extremely good reference quality results.

We will be burning more discs in the days to come, and we will also come back to this great drive with a proper review. Meanwhile you can track our progress by looking at our Nero Disc Speed (previously known as Nero CD-DVD Speed) quality scan results at the MediaBase: CLICK HERE

We are also more than interested in hearing if you already have some experiences with this drive. Use the comment feature below to share your thoughts about it.

AnyDVD HD now with BD+ support

Film studios that have switched to Blu-ray may have crowed a little too early because the much-praised BD+ copy protection is an ad absurdum affair now, too. With today’s release of version 6.4.0.0 of AnyDVD HD it is now also possible to make backup security copies of Blu-ray discs protected with BD+.

Richard Doherty of the Envisioneering Group will have to revise his statement from July, 2007 regarding BD+: “BD+, unlike AACS which suffered a partial hack last year, won’t likely be breached for 10 years”. It is worth mentioning that since he made that statement only eight months have gone by.

Peer van Heuen, head of High-Definition technologies at SlySoft adds: “Admittedly, we are not really so fast with this because actually we had intended to publish this release already in December as promised. However, it was decided for strategic reasons to wait a bit for the outcome of the “format war” between HD DVD and Blu-ray. On top of that, we first wanted to see our assumptions confirmed about the in the meantime released BD+ titles regarding the BD+ Virtual Machine. We are rather proud to have brought back to earth the highly-praised and previously “unbreakable” BD+. However, we must also admit that the Blu-ray titles released up to now have not fully exploited the possibilities of BD+. Future releases will undoubtedly have a modified and more polished BD+ protection, but we are well prepared for this and await the coming developments rather relaxed”. Van Heuen adds jokingly: “The worst-case scenario then is our boss locks us up with only bread and water in the company dungeon for three months until we are successful again”.

Giancarlo Bettini, SlySoft CEO, adds, “We are convinced that today’s release will give the high-density market new impulse. It remains unclear just what direction this will take. On the one hand, it can give Blu-ray a boost because the end-user has the certainty in knowing now that a backup security copy can also be made from Blu-ray disks protected by BD+. On the other hand, one or more film studios may want to reconsider their withdrawal from HD DVD and Toshiba could also grant the high-density DVD a reprieve. HD DVD certainly deserves a second chance, particularly since HD DVD hardware has obtained a higher market share within the last months than its BD counterpartfrom SONY. In any event, I wish all those involved a happy Easter from the bottom of my heart.”

Source: SlySoft, Inc. press release