Asus BW-16D1H-U Pro External Blu-ray Writer Review

The world of media has bowed down to online streaming, but a plenty of old school movie buffs still prefer consuming media off optical disks. Asus, to the delight of these old school disk admirers, has recently launched its external Blu-Ray Writer – the BW-16D1H-U PRO. Blu-ray disks can hold data in order of 100GBs, as compared to limited 4.7GB in a DVD (or 8.5GB in dual layer ones), and is thus the most popular optical medium for Movies and Video Game (re)distribution.

Blu-rays can host a syndicate of entertainment data, in rich uncompressed video and audio formats. 4k Video and Dolby TrueHD High Fidelity Pure Audio (HFPA)  *geek stuff* to be accurate. It is equivalent to sitting inside the movie, given you choose a great Home Theatre setup. Best game titles now come loaded on Blu-ray disks to best exploit the "nearly unlimited" space.

Finest Entertainment at a Compelling Price

The Asus BW-16D1H-U Pro external Blu-ray writer opens gates for a far-flung arena of entertainment media at a competitive price of Rs. 12,199. Christened TurboDrive, the external Blu-ray writer from Asus is one of the fastest with Blu-ray write speeds of up to 16X. It is a great entertainment tool owing to its 3D-ready capabilities and is compatible with both, Windows and Mac machines.

Bold Looks, Bolder Build

BW-16D1H-U Pro from Asus stages aggressive yet appealing looks. The diamond-cut design with an indication light that appears to be gem tainted blue gives it a very bold appearance. The build is solid and a stand is provided in the package to seat the drive in standing position and using space more economically. Disks don’t slide or fall even when the tray is completely open. Horizontal seating is eased by rubber cushions at the bottom, which also improve its grip on slanting surfaces. The rear face hosts power and USB jacks.

USB 3.0 and 3-D Enhancement Features

It features USB 3.0 for faster file transfers, expediting transfer rates up to 10 times over USB 2.0. The Asus BW-16D1H-U Pro comes with active 3D support and is capable of converting any 2D video to 3D Blu-ray quality video. This, however, requires a (prior) investment in a GPU upwards of Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT or ATI X1600 series. The package carries bundled software - Power2Go 8 and PowerDVD 12 from Cyberlink – for an enriched multimedia experience using disks. Cyberlink PowerBackup 2.5, included in the bundle aids creating, and restoring backups of optical disks and storing them on your PC or uploading it on the cloud. Asus also offers free Unlimited storage on cloud for first six months.

Burn Blu-ray's in a jiffy

Blue-ray disks can be burnt at a tremendous speed of 16X, thanks to backing from supplied Cyberlink Instaburn 5 software. Writing speeds for DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD-R and CD-RW diskettes are 16X, 8X, 48X and 24X respectively. Testing both Blu-ray and DVD disks for burning speeds, we observed that the although its Blu-ray writing speeds are superior to most in its class, but the Asus Blu-ray writer performed at speeds standard to most other DVD writers while burning the latter.

Tough Survivor Loaded with Data Protection Features

The digital output can be tuned to upscale videos from DVD to FullHD 1080p resolution. Asus offers features like data encryption and hidden file systems to enhance security of data. Data can be stored till eternity using the M-Disc, which are supported by this writer. M-Disc technology is resistant to forces of nature and cannot be damaged under extreme weather conditions like high temperature, bright light or humidity. The drive weighs approximately 1.3 kg with its stand (1.16 kg sans stand) and doesn’t necessarily flaunt the “on the go” badge.