In Use:

The software installation for the LG BH10LS30 10x Blu-ray burner was pain free. The below left image shows the CyberLink Blu-ray Disc Suite 6.0 installer's splash screen, which looks a good deal like the interface of the suite once installed. The below right image shows the titles available to be installed, and it was interesting to me that all but one title (PowerBackup) were checked by default.



This suite of software lets you tackle a variety of Blu-ray related tasks, from watching movies, to burning discs, to creating LightScribe labels (among other things). While it functions perfectly, and should be an asset to any user, the versions of the software on the disc are a bit old. For example, version 8 of PowerDVD is installed, where as version 11 is the current release. You can upgrade to the latest, and on occasion the suite will nag/remind you that newer versions are available, occasionally letting you know how much extra you could pay to have the latest full version.

Once installed, the first thing I did was watch a couple movies on Blu-ray disc. The PowerDVD player worked perfectly, and provided a familiar interface for watching movies. On a 1920x1200 screen, the difference between DVD and Blu-ray was crystal clear, and even old favorites like the Pirates of the Caribbean seemed new.

The next steps were to test a variety of read/write processes using the LG BH10LS30 and the software title ImgBurn. This title provides a flexible means to read and write in a variety of ways to CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays. It is useful for review purposes as it provides details on the transfer rates and time it took to complete each task, which is what we will be paying attention to. The next four sections take a look at tasks performed with ImgBurn...

Blu-ray movie rip to ISO file:

First up, I ripped a copy of a Blu-ray movie from disc to an ISO image stored on a system hard drive. While the maximum read speed you might expect for a DL disc is 8x, you also have to consider that the contents were converted to a single ISO file at the same time. It took just under 50 minutes to complete the task of ripping the disc to a 46.6GB ISO file.

Average Read Rate: 14,897 KB/s (3.3x)
Maximum Read Rate: 21,662 KB/s (4.8x)
Duration: 49:22
ISO File Size: 46.6 GB

DVD movie rip to ISO file:

For the second test, the DVD version of the movie above was also ripped to an ISO file stored on a system hard drive. The process of creating the 6.4GB ISO file took just over 15 minutes.

Average Read Rate: 7,406 KB/s (5.3x)
Maximum Read Rate: 10,458 KB/s (7.6x)
Duration: 15:06
ISO File Size: 6.4 GB

Picture files (JPG, PNG, GIF) burned to 6x Blu-ray BD-R:

The next test involved burning a folder containing 8.5GB of JPG, PNG, and GIF files to a Verbtaim brand 25GB BD-R disc rated at 6x. 6x media is the fastest I have ever seen, which made me think that the 10x rating of the drive was a waste. I set ImgBurn to "Max" speed in order to see what it could do, with expectations that one of two things would happen... 1) It would try to run at 10x and fail, or 2) it would just burn at 6x and prove that 10x wasn't testable. In the end, both hypotheses were wrong, as ImgBurn declared that 10x would be the max, and it successfully completed burning with an average rate of 5.5x, while hitting a maximum of 7.1x. I'd be more comfortable that the pricey BD-R discs weren't going to turn in to coasters if I had media to match the speed of the drive, but to be safe you can always set 6x to the max in your burning software.

Average Read Rate: 24,716 KB/s (5.5x)
Maximum Read Rate: 31,864 KB/s (7.1x)
Duration: 06:04
Size on Disk: 8.5 GB

ISO image burned to 2.4x DVD+R DL:

The final test was to burn a 7.3GB ISO image to a 2.4x rated DVD+R DL disc. The task was completed in excess of the rated speed of the media by setting ImgBurn to "Max", and a successful burn was completed in just over 25 minutes.

Average Read Rate: 5,053 KB/s (3.6x)
Maximum Read Rate: 16,529 KB/s (11.9x)
Duration: 25:21
Size on Disk: 7.3 GB

In the end - all tasks were completed successfully, and at speeds I would consider to be acceptable or better!