Pioneer DVR-A04 IDE DVD-R/RW - Page 2

CD/DVD Data Tests

- SCSI Mechanic v3.0x results

The Pioneer DVR-A04 has almost the same performance as the previous DVR-A03 drive. Both drives support 24x (CAV) maximum reading speed. The Pioneer DVR-A04 seems improved at the "Average Random I/O" mark with 647Kb/s. At the "Average Sequential I/O" mark, the drive is slower than DVR-A03 by only 3Kb/s.

- Pressed CD: (Click to see the CD Speed Graph)

Using Nero CD Speed v0.85, we confirmed the SCSI Mechanic results. The Pioneer DVR-A04 drive has an 18.61X average reading speed, which is slightly lower than the previous DVR-A03 drive.

In the "Seek Times" test, the Pioneer DVR-A04 has the same performance as with DVR-A03 at "Random" and "1/3" tests. There is a noticeable improvement in the "Full Stroke" test. The DVR-A04 resulted in 297ms, whilst the DVR-A03 is 376ms

- CDR Media: (Click to see the CD Speed graph)

With CD-R media, the Pioneer DVR-A04 drive has improved performance and has a 19.01X average reading speed. The Pioneer DVR-A03 drive stays at 12.71X.

- HS-RW Media: (Click to see the CD Speed graph)

Pioneer DVR-A04 has improved the reading performance also with HS-CD/RW media, giving a 19.16X reading speed. Pioneer DVR-A03 stays behind with 12.37X.

- DVD Results: (Click to see the DVD Speed graph for DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW)

Pioneer DVR-A04 supports a DVD reading speed of 6X (X factor = 1385Kb/s) and the test results show that clearly. Pioneer DVR-A03 stays behind with a 4X DVD reading speed.

The seek times of Pioneer DVR-A04 are the same as for the DVR-A03 model, in the "Random" test. In the "1/3" and "Full Stroke" tests, the DVR-A04 gave almost the half seek times than the DVR-A03.

When ripping DVD movies, the Pioneer DVR-A04 has an average reading speed of 2750Kb/s. The performance is confirmed by the specifications, since the drive can only read up to 2X with dual layer DVD's. Compared to Pioneer DVR-A03, the performance has increased slightly.

Pioneer DVR-A04 supports 2X CLV for all DVD formats, including DVD-R/DVD-RW and DVD+RW .The performance of the drive is higher than Pioneer's DVR-A03, since it supported 2X CLV (DVD-R) and 1X CLV (DVD-RW) reading speeds*. Note that both Pioneer DVR-A03/A04 cannot recognize written DVD+R media as the last minute tests showed.

* NB: This is dependent on the state of the DVD-RW media. If it has been finalized, then it should be able to be read at 2X. If it is still in an un-finalized state, then the R4 stays in 1X read mode for un-finalized media because it remains in a "Write ready" state.