Pioneer DVR-A05 Review

kila_m writes " Over at DVD Writers we have the world's first review of the recently announced Pioneer DVR-A05 DVD writer. It supports 4 speed DVD-R writing, 2 speed DVD-RW, 16 speed CD-R and is able to write to CD-RW disks at 8 speed. The review is based on a pre-release unit and is fairly comprehensive. " The review itself is one level deeper.

Comments

DVR A03

[root_42]

We are using the DVR A03 here for backup purposes and hacking together Linux DVDs. I must say that this device really is great. Pioneer support is also quite good. The writer died a couple of weeks ago, but an exchange device came only a few days later.
And with DVD-R media at about 3,- EUR and DVD-RW at 6,- it also becomes a feasible alternative to CD-R/RW. The old DVR A03 also costs "only" 300,- EUR now. That's a price many people might be willing to pay, and when the DVR A05 hits the stores, I think prices will fall even more.

Re:Why don't they ever clarify

[khuber]

The amount of data transferred per x is about 9:1, i.e. 8x DVD is approximately 76x CDROM.

-Kevin

Re:SCSI

[hatchet]

Because more and more companies are realizing that SCSI does not provide us with substantial performance advantage.. and only few high-end motherboards have scsi controllers on-board, but they all have ATA/IDE controllers.

SCSI burners work better and tend to last longer, although the only metric I have are my Plextors who have lasted a few years now. This is versus HP IDE burners which have both failed.
That has nothing to do with scsi/ide... my IDE Plextor did not fail in 2 years too. But friends HP did.

Anyway.. we're all waiting for SATA. serial, cheap, faster, thinner cables, ...

Consumer DVD-R is here, but not ready for 4x

[bouis]

Current Pioneer DVD-R drives keep a list of identification strings for all "2x certified" media in the firmware. For a new media manufacturer to be added to this firmware list, they must pay Pioneer for 2x certification. Few generic manufacturers are willing to do this.

Thus, there is no real standard for "generic" 2x discs; those that claim to be are either re-labeled (and expensive) or (speculation) have "fake" identifiers -- the quality and compatability varies greatly, but suffice to say, most are quite poor.

Though, I did say that consumer DVD-R is here: Princo ($0.66) and Ritek ($1.00) both make fine (and cheap) 1x discs which can be burned at 2x using a "hacked" firmware. My experience suggests that Princo 1x media are good for 2x, although set-top compatability seems to suffer. Many have reported good luck with Riteks, although I've had poor luck with discs over 4.00 GB (full capacity is 4.38 GB).

Re:Multistandard?

[horati0]

Does it support both +R and -R discs?

I'm waiting for one of the standards to go away or both to merge in all drives (betamax-fobia).

Sony has a DVD-RW/+RW unit coming out next month. The positive reviews, speedy 4x DVD+RW write speed, and a pretty good pricepoint ($350) might make this a popular unit VERY quickly.

Some times your purpose in life...

[(H)elix1]

is only to serve as a warning to others.

Don't get sucked in by a low priced HP DVD i100 burner. I picked one up to create ghost images for our SE's demo laptops. With the latest bios, drivers, etc - I've found two DVD-ROM's that will actually read a burned CD. Unfortunately, that does not include any of the IBM think pads, Dell latitudes, or any other Dell workstation in our shop.

For $99, HP will 'update' the drive to make it work with DVD-R's. That is another stinky issue since they advertised it worked with the -R media, but I'm OK with DVD-RW media if it actually was readable by anything I picked it up for. The box said it ran under Win2K server - it does, but only as a DVD-ROM. The burning software only 'works' with Win2K workstation and below. Customer Service was less than helpful.

Rather than spend the $99 and hope - We picked up a Pioneer unit (not the one in this review, but don't remember the number) and have had no problems. Fool me once...

Re:Why SCSI?

[runderwo]

The only place SCSI is marginally useful is in RAID systems on your server, and even there it's only cost effective if you are running a system with thousands of users.

A pretty bold claim to make.

• SCSI is designed for efficiency, and produces less CPU load than IDE for the majority of tasks.
• SCSI can disconnect busy devices from the channel, not locking it out from use by other devices, and thus not practically requiring a whole bus for every device you use.
• SCSI command structure is well-documented, consistent, simple to program, and generic enough to support almost any device that is capable of transfering data.
• SCSI has had built-in data integrity features for years, which were only recently introduced with Ultra ATA.
• Many SCSI devices are hotswappable in the case of a failure.
• The SCSI hostadapter/target relationship is a more flexible relationship than the IDE interface/device relationship, and can be more useful where unique solutions are required (such as accessing a device from two machines simultaneously).
• SCSI equipment tends to be more expensive, but the difference is that it is not throwaway, consumer-quality equipment. Many people appreciate having this choice.

No, you're not magically going to burn a sincle CD faster with a SCSI drive. But using speed as the only rationale is not looking at the whole picture. It's sort of like saying that the dual 600MHz Origin server is less worthwhile than my PC, because my PC crunches numbers faster and is cheaper.

If the extra $100 I pay for a SCSI drive means that I will enjoy never having to replace the drive; never having to deal with a software compatibility hassle; never having to deal with an interoperability hassle with another device in my loaded system; and never having less than the best performance that I expect from the equipment, then that's an extra fee that I will be happy to pay and not look back.

The choice is up to the individual, but all these people bemoaning those who have preferred, and still prefer, SCSI drives is sort of ridiculous. Isn't a diverse marketplace supposed to be a good thing?