PIONEER Slim External Blu-Ray Writer BDR-XU03

No es multiregion, te permite cambiar la region hasta 5 veces solamente. La calidad es muy buena con una mac debes comprar el software especial pra reproducir blue-ray, el producto es bueno en calidad.

Bought this to watch blu-ray movies on my 15″ retina MBP.

I have a sizeable collection of blu-ray movies (2D & 3D), which I watch at home (in my bedroom), using a Pioneer HTZ-BD32 home theatre system and a 40″ Samsung 3D LED TV. While I enjoyed watching movies at home, I wanted something that would enable me to watch blu-ray movies on my rMBP when I was not at home. After researching a few blu-ray players/writers, I settled on the Pioneer, mainly because of my good experience with the home theatre system. The cost was a bit of a concern, especially considering that I could get 2 Samsung blu-ray writers for the same price as 1 Pioneer BDR-XU03. I placed my order on Friday, 18 July 2014. The estimated delivery date was Wednesday, 23 July 2014, at 20h00. The blu-ray writer was delivered on Monday, 21 July 2014, at 09h00. Very impressive, considering I’m in South Africa.

First of all, this thing is beautiful. It makes the Apple Superdrive (which I have) look outdated. It’s also much thinner and lighter than the Superdrive. It matches my rMBP in terms of looks and thinness. If the Pioneer logo was not on the BDR-XU03, one would assume it was made by Apple; that’s how beautiful it is. The included stand is a nice touch; it gives it a sense of style and sophistication.
Does it play blu-ray movies on a Mac right out of the box? No, it doesn’t. At least not without additional software (which is clearly stated on the box). I bought MacGo Mac Blu-ray Player for $40 to accompany the BDR-XU03. It’s a match made in Pioneer heaven. I can now play all my 2D and 3D (in 2D mode on rMBP) blu-ray movies on my rMBP. The basic settings are there: movie language, subtitles, chapter selection. Played movie in full screen mode. The clarity is amazing on the retina display. I also downloaded the Pioneer Drive Utility, which has additional functionality for the BDR-XU03, like playing the blu-rays at slower speeds to reduce drive noise when watching movies. DVD movies also play well, with the standard options available on blu-ray movies.

I have not used the blu-ray writing capability of this device yet, and shall update this review once I have done that.

Overall, I’m very happy I bought the BDR-XU03 for my blu-ray movies.

The drive in my laptop failed and it was more economic to buy this than have it repaired. This one also plays Blu-ray disks. Does exactly what it says in the advertising

UPDATE: 09-21-2014

I ran into some problems ripping my audio book collection. I’ve used dBpoweramp CD Ripper software for audio ripping for a couple of years with no prior problems. I noticed that about half of the ripped files were missing the last 1-3 minutes of each CD. The CD rips were also taking longer than expected with the BDR-XUO3. The Pioneer BD Drive Utility has a test you can run which checks the drive’s operation with USB Power. The test indicated I did not have enough power from the USB bus alone – to properly use the drive. I tried some different USB cables and re-ran the tests. I found using a thicker, better quality USB cable got better results, however, it still wasn’t enough. The test then indicated “Power supply is slightly not enough” (no kidding – that’s what it actually says).

I contacted Pioneer customer service and asked where I could get an AC Adapter for the drive. Customer service asked me some basic questions and said they’d contact their parts department to have a power supply sent to me. 3 weeks went by with no new power supply. I emailed the customer service rep I’d been dealing with, and he said there’d been some problem with their parts department and that they’d get my AC Adapter to me ASAP. 4 days later I received a Pioneer DCA-002 AC Adapter. It appears to have resolved my ripping issues. My Blu-Ray rips are also a little faster – I just ripped a 36GB BD in 25 minutes.

I’m downgrading my initial rating to 4 stars due to the problems I encountered. While I’m still quite happy with this drive’s performance, and I appreciate Pioneer being cool about sending me a power supply. Pioneer did drop the ball in getting me the AC Adapter to me – which required additional follow up. I also shouldn’t have encountered the type of problems I did, with such an expensive drive – hence the 4 star rating.
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ORIGINAL REVIEW (with some typo corrections & sentence structure changes):

Space saving was my primary consideration when purchasing the BDR-XU03:
1. I was running out of storage space inside my work station/Plex server’s Micro-ATX case. All of my 3.5″ HDD slots were filled. My existing internal Asus BD-RW drive had faithfully (and speedily) ripped several hundred CD’s/Blu-Rays/DVD’s over the past year with no hiccups. The Asus, however, had to go. It was taking up the last available drive bay in my Plex server and I needed that space for another HDD.
2. Space (or lack there of) was also an issue with my work space – I didn’t have the room on my desk for a large, external Blu-Ray Drive. I needed the smallest possible external BD Drive I could find – a drive that also offered comparable performance to the internal Asus drive I’ve been using.

Thanks to prior reviewers, I knew that: (a)The BDR-XU03 Utility was needed to unlock this drive’s true potential and; (b) the Pioneer website would offer no assistance in finding said utility. Pioneer’s U.S. website had no mention of this utility – so I went ahead and sent a customer support request via their website. I made sure to be very specific about what I needed & requested that they email me the utility. I sent the request late on a Thursday evening. I received the actual utility early on the following Monday (after a couple of obligatory emails from Pioneer, letting me know my request was being forwarded to the appropriate Tech Support personnel). Installing & using the utility was straightforward & simple. Selecting the “Performance” mode resulted in a significant speed increase.

Regarding my usage: I can’t attest to the BDR-XU03’s ability to watch Blu-Ray movies and/or write BDs – I could care less about that. I simply wanted as small an external drive as possible for the purpose of ripping BD purchases to my family’s personal media collection. All content viewing is streamed from my Plex Box throughout my home’s wired/wireless network. For reference sake: I’m running W8.1 on 3570k w/16GB RAM on a Z77 MoBo. I use MakeMKV software for my initial “Master” rips and then HandBrake to compress them further into MP4s. I’ve consistently been able to Rip 40GB BDs in 30-35 minutes. These are faster times than my Asus internal drive. I’m quite happy about these results. The drive is a little noisy in “Performance” mode, however, it doesn’t really come into play since I using the drive for Ripping-only anyway. I have plenty of background noise/music/etc in my work space that easily drowns out the whirring from this tiny drive.

Verdict:
BDR-XU03 has exceeded my expectations as a small form factor external BD Drive. Plus it looks pretty cool sitting on top of the old workspace.