Pioneer DVR-A03 IDE DVD-R/RW- Page 3

CD Data Tests

Test Method
- SCSI Mechanic v3.0x: This was used to compare the drive's I/O performance against other various CDR-W drives (see charts). We used a pressed CD containing PlexTools v1.08 for all tests.
- Nero CD Speed v0.84b was also used to check the drive's performance with pressed CDs. For that test, we also used the PlexTools v1.08 pressed CD.

For comparison reasons we post the results of the Teac CD-RW280PU/PleXWriter PX-S88TU that also support 24x reading.

- SCSI Mechanic v3.0x results

The Pioneer DVR-A03 performed quite good, compared to other 24x (CAV) drives. The drive produced 2729Kb/s as the "Average Sequential I/O", 566Kb/s in the "Average Random I/O" mark and 5945 Kb/s at the "Same Sector I/O" tests.

- Nero CD Speed v0.84 results: (Click to see the CD Speed Graph)

Using Nero CD Speed 0.84, we confirmed the SCSI Mechanic results. The Pioneer drive has 18.64X average reading speed, which is slightly higher than other 24x readers.

In the "Seek Times" test, the Pioneer didn't perform good enough, since it has much higher times than other comparable drives. The drive needs 376secs for a full stroke making it a bad choice as your main reader.

- PSX Pressed Media

For this test we used the PSX game 'NBA Jam Extreme' and we ripped the image to HD with CloneCD. We measured the reading times for the Pioneer, which was very low (109secs):

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

With CDR media, the Pioneer drive has a lower average reading speed (12.71X), since it starts from 7.49X and finishes at 16.78X.

- DVD Speed v0.52: (Click to see the DVD Speed graph for DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW)

The Pioneer DVR-A03 has only 4X DVD reading speed and of course it cannot compete against the rest of the 16X DVD capable drives.

The seek times of the Pioneer DVR-A03 are increased, compared to a pure DVD-ROM drive. But remember that Pioneer's mission is not only reading but also writing. The big seek times will definitely cause some slowdowns when you try to access a DVD-ROM/R/RW disc.

When ripping DVD movies, the Pioneer DVR-A03 has an average of 2654Kb/s. The performance is very good and according to the specifications, since the drive can only read up to 2X with dual layer DVDs.

Let us now check the drive performance when reading DVD-R and DVD-RW media. According to the specifications, the drive has 2X CLV (DVD-R) and 1X CLV (DVD-RW) reading speeds. Our test results confirmed those claims.