ASUS BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS 12X Blu-ray Internal Burner Drive with Disc Encryption - Black - Retail Box

Bought this so I could make backups of my extensive blu-ray disk collection. Works well and is simple to install, yank out your existing DVD burner/Player and pop this in - or if you have a spare full-size slot in your case, you can add this as a second optical drive. Reliable and reasonably priced. Keys to making successful blu-ray or DVD disks:* Good drive (this one works well)* Good quality blank disks! VERY IMPORTANT! Cheapy blu-ray blanks can result in cheapy drink coasters! I buy disks from Amazon that come from Japan. They work well and are by and large reliable.Blu-Ray disks are more sensitive to scratches and fingerprints than their DVD cousins - this is particularly true of 'double layer' or double-density blu-ray disks. Be careful when handling- and keep them in protective sleeves when not watching them.

Hello,I capture a lot of video with my iPad 2 and iPhone 5 which means I also create Blu-ray disks because I don't want to lower the resolution. This drive is very quiet when reading and writing.It also operates very well with Easy-CD-DA Extractor and ImgBurn because I also own a lot of audiobooks and I love make my own Audiobooks for my iPad, iPod and iPhone. Easy-CD-DA Extractor has a Level 1 C2 error detection that most optical drives come with...which means it'll display Errors if there are any so that you may stop, use a slower speed and try gain or change the error detection to even attempt repair. This feature must be activated in Easy-CD-DA Extractor as Level 2. This drive is smooth during the audio ripping process. I have an older Sony drive that I want to be able to replace with a faster one and this DOES. I also have a lot of music CDs..and it has had great success with those. Most are clean, but some have some scratches.It comes with a CD but I feel no need for it since ImgBurn is donation ware or free and is brilliant at reading and writing personal disks. I also already own PowerDVD 11 so..no need for extra software. It has a SATA connection. I'm very pleased with it after owning it for about a week now. It also operates excellently with AnyDVD HD.I've noticed Maxell BD-RE-DL's burn at 2.0 with ImgBurn and Verbatium BD-RE-DL burn at 0.9.I have not tested highly scratched CDs yet, and I don't have many because I care about my stuff. Functioning well and quiet.

After vacillating between sticking with a normal DVD burner or moving up to Blu-ray I decided on the latter. What sealed the deal was the $20 rebate offered by ASUS, making the AR cost of this drive $59.99. A decent bargain.I installed it into my Windows 8 64bit system replacing a burnt out DVD burner, which could only make coasters. The drive wasn't recognized right away until I put a blank DVD-R in, after which everything seemed to work. No extra drivers were needed to be installed. The very first DVD+R DL that I tried to burn using ImgBurn ended up being bad, but I attribute that to me not allowing the program to determine the best settings. After I did that I haven't had any new coasters made.As noted by others, there is no Blu-ray playback software included in this package. I expected this, so I wasn't surprised or disappointed. What you do get is a disc with a burning program on it, along with a few other minor things from ASUS. Once I installed Cyberlink's PowerDVD 12 (purchased separately) I was able to watch the Blu-ray discs from my collection at 1080p on my HDCP-compliant monitor hooked up with a DVI cable without any problems.So far so good!

I installed this drive in a newly built PC with windows 7. The first problem was withsoftware installation. The ASUS site has a problem allowing choice of operating systemfor the download of the firmware update, it does not work with either path to get to it.ASUS offers some program that supposedly performs the download for you by 'discovering'what you need. SInce I don't need to be discovered, I chose not to use this option.The second problem is with the rebate that was offered through their site. Requirementsfor obtaining the rebate are absurd, including removing the bar code from the unit (whichcannot be removed without damage), and a mailing label which must be cut out from the formand pasted on to the envelope.As for the unit itself, it appears to be good hardware. It burns disks with no problem. Iwould give the unit a higher rating except for the pathetically stupid web site and rebateprocedure.Note that the unit appears to work with the newer media, including BD re-writeable.