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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.
I'm still waiting for Pioneer (or anyone) to make a slot-loading CD-RW / DVD-RW/+RW drive. Their slot loading DVD drives are fantastic.
Nobody seems to make them. Does anyone know if there's a reason why?
Does anyone know if this is an ATAPI burner? Can it be used by existing software?
I hope that I actually get the manual in the complete release:
"The package contains:
1 x Pioneer DVR-105 DVD Writer
1 x Manual (online) "
I'd have to say that it looks good, even the cons section had an awful lot of items solved by having a second read-only drive (which you usually have).
When on the subject I'd like to discuss a reliability issue. Burned CDs, and even more CDRWs, have a tendency to break after a while (don't expect a CDRW to hold data more than 1-2 years). Judging from the added complexity I doubt that burned DVDs are better. How does a burned DVD rate as a backup media? What is the error rate compared to your average tape?
Where's the SCSI version? Seriously, why does it seem as CD-R/DVD-R drive manufacturers are abandoning SCSI? I realise that the dude who's getting a Dell has IDE and they probably sell more of those. I also realise the people out there who don't want to spend the extra cash on SCSI have a say in this. I further realise that there will be people who will say that they've never had a problem with IDE burners and good for them. I have had nothing but trouble with them and I will never purchase another again...
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.
So... Where's the SCSI version? Last time I checked, Plextor was the last reliable SCSI CD-RW drive vendor out there. Who/what/why would you recommend today? Are there any benefits to IDE burners (technically for the IDE interface, not just because they're newer and faster) over the SCSI counterparts?
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
I'm just thrilled that it writes CDRs at 16x...I'm using an 8x notebook burner now, so I was resolved not to take a hit in speed when I get an external DVD writer. At 16x I think a lot of people can finally get one drive for all their burning needs, rather than a seperate CDRW and DVD-R.
There will be exceptions, if you need (or think you need) superfast burning. but this is welcome news.
Putting this together with last weeks "Philip's SFFO 3cm 4Gig Optical Discs" story and now you have a choice of watching 5 2 hour movies or streaming 1080i HDTV over your cell phone. Who's going to have time to make phone calls?
"I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating. And in fourteen days, I had lost exactly two weeks. Joe E. Lewis
That drives actually already in stock at the Circuit City. For what it's worth. The model number is Sony DRU500A and it retail for $349
The accounts I've heard from the elders about Betamax are something I don't want to have to experience first hand. This drive appears to solve the problem by reading most of the formats, and writing most of them too. I desperately need a new CD-ROM, and would like a way of recording as well, but my trepidation at being locked into early technology is large.
This article mentioned that even some versions of the PS2 had differences. I despise this sort of thing. I have a feeling that with the right sort of hardware, most of these problems could be fixed in firmware. Some company needs to put out a drive that has the hardware to do everything, release the specs, and watch as the firmware to read/write all standards roll in.
As an aside, how and CD-R[W] and DVD[+/-]R[W/AM/OM] accomplished in Linux? Would it be by creating a file of the proper size, hooking a loopback device up to it, and treating it as the proper file system, then writing that to the disk? What if I don't have a partition on my disk big enough to handle the temp file?
Not true. Your examples don't represent the rest of the world. There are people with larger mp3 collections, larger movie collections. Larger fill-in-the-blank.
DVD being only 7X more capacity of CDR is a disappointment. Add to the fact that the drives are only barely in the affordable range, AND that we don't have a single standard.
If we were talking blue disc right now,(38X more capacity of CDR) that would be something different!
There are articles available that show that the DVD recording technology has been purposely delayed to milk out the last $$$$ out of the CDR market.
I work for Pioneer, and when I saw this I was like, WE DONT EVEN HAVE IT!? HOW DID THEY REVIEW IT!
But I Found out that its due in here next week, I guess we (Japan Corp) sent it out to some manufacturers first, and they somehow got ahold of one.
As far as pricing goes, I have been told that dealer pricing is supposed to be the same as the A04, so whether or not the dealers will mark it up more or not is up to them, take it as you will. Im gonna get mine next week.
BTW 4x Burning Doesnt even matter when you don't have 4x media,
moo.