Pioneer has announced the BDR-PR1, a Blu-ray disc burner designed to offer reliable BD recordings for for long-term archival.

In an effort to increase the reliability of the BD recordings, the new drive features a newly designed optical pickup unit (OPU) and burns BD media using only the Constant Linear Velocity (CLV) writing strategy. In addition, the drive is bundled with a digital error checking software than can be used to check the quality of the recorded BD-R disc right after the burning procedure, ensuring greater longevity of the stored data.

According to Pioneer, burning on MKM's new 50GB BD-Rs at 4X CLV results low Burst Error Cound (BEC) and Random Symbol Error Rate (RSER). These parameters are among the basic signals related to digital errors of a Blu-ray disc and Pioneer's results are well within the specifications defined for BD-R discs.

The BDR-PR1 is also compatible with CD and DVD media, as you see in the specification sheet below.

The drive is expected to be released in Japan first by the end of the month.

Epson will also release the PP-7050BD disc duplicator in Japan, which will be equipped with Pioneer's BDR-PR1 BD burners.

Specifications

Supported discs for recording	BD		BD-R (Single/Dual layer), BD-RE(Single/Dual layer)
	DVD		DVD-R , DVD-R DL, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD+RW,
	CD		CD-R, CD-RW HS, CD-RW US
Supported discs for reading	BD		BD-ROM (Single/Dual layer), BD-R (Single/Dual layer), BD-RE (Single/Dual layer)
	DVD		DVD-ROM (Single/Dual layer), DVD-Video, DVD-R, DVD-R DL, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD+RW, DVD-ROM (Single / Dual layer), DVD-Video
	CD		CD-ROM (Mode 1&2), CD-ROM XA, Photo CD (Single/Multi-session), Video CD, CD-DA, CD-Extra, CD-R, CD-RW
Interface	Serial ATA Revision 2.6
Write speeds	BD	-R	2x,4x,6x
		-R DL	2x,4x,6x
		-R(LtH)	2x,4x,6x
		-RE	2x
		-RE DL	2x
	DVD	-R	1x,2x,4x,6x,8x,12x,16x
		-R DL	2x,4x,6x,8x
		-RW	1x,2x,4x,6x,8x
		+R	2.4x,4x,6x,8x,12x,16x
		+R DL	2.4x,4x,6x,8x
		+RW	2.4x,4x,6x,8x
	CD	-R	4x,10x,16x,24x,32x,40x
Read Speeds	BD-ROM ( SL)		8x Max
	BD-ROM (DL)		8xMax
	DVD-ROM (SL)		16x Max
	DVD-ROM (DL)		12x Max
	CD-ROM		40x
Buffer Memory	4 MB
Installation position	Horizontal
Dimensions and weight	148 mm x 42.3 mm x 181 mm (W x H x D), 750 g