Although the growth of Blu-ray in desktop is not as fast as we originally expected some years ago, the technology continues to develop. Pioneer made the step further to introduce the first BD XL Blu-ray disc burner, the BDR-206MBK. Without any doubt, the drive marks a new phase in the Blu-ray technology and actually advances it to a level by boosting the amount of storage per disc up to 128GB.

The drive supports triple-layer BD-R (write-once) and BD-RE (rewritable) discs with huge capacities of 100GB, and even 128GB quad-layer BD-R discs. Given the layers involved, the BD XL (recordable) specifications are limiting the burning of these new BDXL discs to 4x speed. In our tests, the BDR-206MBK burned more than 95GB of data in 1 hr and 43 minutes, using the 4x CLV writing strategy. The TDK BD-R TL disc was fully readable. Of course, compared with the 11-12 minutes needed to write around 22GB at 12x to 6x -speed discs, this isn't a short process. And the upcoming rewritable BDXL media will run at just 2x CLV, which means that times get even slower.

The price of the BD XL media is also high - at least for now - since TDK's disc manufacturing capacity is limited. The TDK BD-R TL discs are really expensive and are currently retailing for 4,300 - 5,000 YEN ($52~$60 / €39~€45). Sony, Sharp and Panasonic are also using TDK's discs in an OEM basis and offer them under their brands. Mitsubishi Kangaku Media (MKM), the company better known for its Verbatim brand, will also release its own BD-R TL (100GB) discs sometime in the autumn of this year.

The Pioneer drive also supports burning of BD-R/RE SL and DL media. Speeds are limited to 6x for BD-R SL /DL and 2x for BD-RE SL /DL. These speeds are lower than those offered by other BD burners currently available at the market but Pioneer is expected to increase them with the successor of the BDR-206 drive - so it might be worth hanging on for that. The burning times we experienced are typical for these speeds (6x CAV or 2x CLV). The discs we used were generally readable with some exceptions; the TDK BD-R DL 4x (TDKBLDRFB (000)) burned at 4x which was unreadable and the Philips BD-RE SL 2x PHILIPW02 burned at 2x, which gave increased digital errors. The writing quality of the drive with BD-R and BD-RE was mediocre, with the results to vary according to the disc type we used for these tests.

Reading of BD discs was smooth and transfer rates also met the drive's advertised speeds. We should also mention Pioneer's successful efforts to make this drive as quiet as possible as the drive reads and writes BDs without any annoying noises or clicks coming out of it. The drive also produced smooth BD playback during testing.

The BDR-206MBK also supports the full range of legacy formats, from CD to DVD+/-R DL, although it isn't the fastest drive with older media. Specifically, the drive uses the 8x speed for writing DVD discs and 24x for burning CDs.

In the burning part, the Pioneer BDR-206MBk is is a great burner and the writing quality results with CD-R/RW , DVD +R/-R SL and DL media we tested were truly amazing.

Although the drive reads defected DVDs with out any problems, reading of defected CDs is definitely not among its strong points, at least according to our tests.

Without any doubt, the Pioneer BDR-206MBK packs excellent technology. However, available for a suggested retail price of $199, it's clearly not going to be a cheap drive. In addition, the current prices of BDXL 100GB and 128GB Blu-ray discs are exceptionally high. Admittedly, BDXL gives the security of a physical disc archive, but the low price of multi-terabyte hard disks or NAS devices are better options in terms of speed, convenience and flexibility, making the Pioneer drive a poor value. As a result, the BDR-206MBK faces an uphill struggle to achieve widespread adoption. On the other hand, professionals who need a reliable optical medium for archiving may find the drive appealing. Enthusiasts who are looking for a niche product may still find the Pioneer drive interesting, especially those who regularly back up huge amounts of data.