Pioneer BDC-2202B 5x Blu-ray/DVD/CD Combo Drive (Black)

by Pioneer

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 10 x 11.5 x 6 inches ; 2.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000S9V44Y
• Item model number: BDC2202B
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004

Product Description

Pioneer 5x Blu-ray player / 12x12 DVD RW +/- / CD / CD-RW drive in a retail box with a black bezel. No software included.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Does not burn Blu-ray discs, SATA cable not included, October 4, 2007

By 

keviny01 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pioneer BDC-2202B 5x Blu-ray/DVD/CD Combo Drive (Black) (Personal Computers)

Pioneer BDC-2202 this is currently the cheapest Blu-ray drive, but it does not burn Blu-ray discs. It burns DVDs and CDs only, and reads Blu-ray discs, DVDs, and CDs. For some people that may be enough, since Blu-ray burning is still impractically slow and expensive.

The drive requires serial ATA (SATA) interface, but does not come with a SATA cable, which you need to connect the drive to your motherboard.

Pioneer's web site has a list of compatible motherboards for this drive, which you may want to see before buying the drive. Mine is on the list, but I still had to update its SATA drivers before I can burn successfully.

Bundled software includes WinDVD 8 LE (which plays Blu-ray movie discs), Ulead VideoStudio 11 SE, and Ulead Burn.Now SE.

I tested with seven Blu-ray movie discs -- "Flightplan," "Memento," "Apocalypto," "Descent," "Basic Instincts," "The Untouchables," and "Dog Day Afternoon" -- and this drive played them all successfully on PowerDVD Ultra.

To play Blu-ray movies (and HD DVDs, for that matter), your PC needs to be fast enough and equipped with HDCP-compliant graphic card and monitor.

I can burn CDs and single layer DVDs with no problem. But I cannot burn dual layer DVD+R ("Matrix" brand bought from shop4tech), not even with Nero Buring Rom. I'll have to try other brands of media.

EDIT 8/11/09:
Last year I found 2 brands of dual-layer discs that I could burn with this drive:

Verbatim 95310 8.5 GB 2.4X Dual-Layer DVD+R, bought at Amazon, and
Matrix DVD+R Media 8.5G 8X Dual Layer Bulk (Item SKU: MATDL+R8X/B), bought at [...].

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!, August 30, 2008

By 

Jeffrey (CASA GRANDE, AZ, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pioneer BDC-2202B 5x Blu-ray/DVD/CD Combo Drive (Black) (Personal Computers)

Blu-Ray playback on the PC is not yet mature. Before you burn your hard-earned cash on this product, make sure you meet ALL of the hardware requirements. And even if you do, like myself, it still may not work!! The software that comes with this product, WinDVD 8 LE is at best still-born. It will work on one of my older PCs, but incredibly not on my fastest machine. It will not even load on my Q6600 Asus P5Q Pro 3GB RAM setup. Go figure. Ultimately, you will need to buy WinDVD 9 Plus or some other application. I cannot understand why you even have to buy this kind of software. It is only just to play a movie.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Blu-ray drive rushed into market, October 17, 2007

By 

S. Kim (Hoffman Estates, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pioneer BDC-2202B 5x Blu-ray/DVD/CD Combo Drive (Black) (Personal Computers)

The drive does not work with computers with SB600 southbridge. You may have to flash the BIOS or get a external SATA controller (Ex.PROMISE SATA300 TX4) The list of supported motherboards provided by the Pioneer documentation is useless because they are so old that you will not be able to find them in the market. The WinDVD software has hardware detection code. You can only install into a computer with the Pioneer drive installed.