LG BH14NS40 14X SATA Blu-ray BDXL Internal Rewriter with Software - Retail Box

What put me on to this drive was that it was a very economical product, costing less than $100 for a drive that could read from and write to a wide variety of media. I actually upgraded from a lite-on drive (another very good purchase, I'm planning on selling it used so it finds a good home) which could only read. It has thus far allowed me to condense a lot of bulky backups including imaging files and software installers (which saves me the trouble of re-downloading them from the sites I bought them from). The drive works well with the Nero SmartStart essentials which came with my computer (and which works extremely well for data backups on optical media).However, I did ding it one star because there are some issues with the software. There are times when my system does glitch up, the screen goes weird and I end up with the blue screen of death.I take this with a grain of salt, though, because for a long time, Windows 7 always blue screened when I told it to reboot. The only reason I think the drive or software may be involved is that this problem occurred right after I installed it. However, with the drive idle and still connected, or with a disc in the drive and still connected, it rarely occurs. I think maybe one software update is glitching out.3/3 discs have thus far been burned and verified. I hope I don't have to write a second review owing to a catastrophe. But, having once upon a time worked in the industry, sometimes failed products slip through even the best quality control. That's why they issue warranties.

NINE MONTHS LATER: heavily used for DVD and Blu-Ray burning and reading: flawless performance! All the rest of this original review remains valid.I have 100s of data DVDs. For certain projects, it has become a necessity to burn back ups in up-to-25 GB blocks, if only for convenience and physical management.Frankly I've only burned a few Blu-rays so far ... and LOTS of DVDs ... with this burner.The (Verbatim AZO) DVDs burn just like (time to completion and verification) my DVD burners do them.What delights me about the Blu-Ray backups is: I can burn 21-23 GB of data AND complete the verification in a total of 20 minutes flat. (That data batch typically consists of in the vicinity of a 1000 files ranging in size from a few 100s bytes to video files in the 100s MB size).CAUTION: these results are on a desktop cpu with Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit, backed by 6 GB RAM, a fast hard drive and an Intel Pentium G630 @ 2.7 GHz. If you have significantly less horsepower, it may take longer. (My CPUs are home and small office-usage types.)I use Verbatim 97457 25 GB 6x Blu-ray Single Layer Recordable Disc BD-R, because that came as a "sample" Blu-Ray disk in the box and presumably LG guarantees performance on that disk (have not tried the LTH disks).TAKE NOTE: I use the "free" writer software named: ImgBurn. It is well designed, works with a wide range of writers, and anticipates possible user errors with warnings and advice when needed.I LIKE THIS BURNER so much that I bought a second one just like it for the other Win 7 CPU (G620 @ 2.6 GHz) ... and get same performance.If there is (somehow) a premature failure, I will be back for further comment.In the meantime: I am pleased with both of these LG SATA Blu-Ray writers.

This writer installed easily and works flawlessly. The accompanying software appears to be excellent, but the software installation documentation is confusing and deficient. The accompanying cd worked fine, and installed without issue; however, the documentation then indicated that there were software updates for the CyberLink software. When I went to install those updates, the installation program told me that I had to uninstall the LG burning tool, which I had just installed, before I could install the updates. When I let the update program uninstall the LG burning tool, the update completed without issue, but I could not reinstall the burning tool. I am assuming, but without any documentary confirmation, that there is something in the updates which make the LG burning tool unnecessary, but there is no way to know. Also, it appears that certain automatic settings on the CyberLink windows services conflict with the NovaBackup software which I use to backup my computer. Again, there is no documentation I could find on this.

The drive seems to be good quality so far but I was disappointed to find that the included Cyberlink Producer software does not support burning HD videos in Blu-Ray format. If I had known that I would not have paid the extra money to get the package with software included.It seems pretty ridiculous to me to bundle a Blu-Ray rewriter with software that only burns DVDs. But it gets better - it's not that the software can't burn to Blu-Ray - it's just crippled unless you pay to upgrade to the full version.Needless to say, if you're going to make me have to make another purchase, then I'm going to evaluate all options. And guess whose software is now going to be at the bottom of the list because of the frustration you caused me? Cyberlink.So, in summary, 5 stars for the drive, 0 stars for the software = 3 stars average.

Purchased this Drive to replace another LG Blu Ray Burner (I am klutzy, bumped into the open tray and ripped the tray out of the Drive. I got a 5 inch scar also from it) Anyway; Drive installs Quickly. Works fine. I don't use Cyberlink software; always caused issues and conflicts with my system. By the way, the cyberlink software that comes with the drive is dongled, meaning it can only be used with this drive. If you have a second CD/DVD/BLU Ray drive in your system, and try to use the Cyberlink software with it, you will get an error.I am rating the drive on it's own merit and give it 5 stars. I have no expectations when it comes to the use of the Cyberlink software. Nor am I rating LGs decision to bundle it with Cyberlink.Before you ask. Sometimes I prefer to purchase retail over OEM or Bare drives :-)

It's a nice Blu ray player but the only problem is the lack of software, I have to paid another $80 USD to use this piece of hardware to play movies and burn blu rays.

Es un buen lector de DVD/BR el unico problema que le encontraras es que debido a que Win10 no tiene soporte nativo para la lectura de BR tendrás que "comprar" un software para poder reproducir tus películas BR, lo cual se me hace de lo más injusto, ya que tener el hardware no te es suficiente, tendrás que buscar un programa o "pagar" por un software para poder reproducir tus películas BR, en cuanto al producto todo bien, llego en perfectas condiciones, rápido y muy atento el vendedor.