Pioneer Japan announced today the release of its new DVR-A12J series of 18x DVD burners, featuring the LabelFlash disc labeling technology and 12x writing for DVD-RAM. The ATAPI drive will retail in Japan in the following days for 10,000 yen ($86).

The Pioneer DVR-A12J series includes the DVR-A12J-W (White bezel), the DVR-A12J-BK (black bezel) and the DVR-A12-SV (silver bezel). The drives offer 18x DVD writing for DVD±R, 10x for DVD±R DL, 6x for DVD-RW, 8x for DVD+RW and 12x for DVD-RAM (non-cartridged Version 2.0, 2.1 & 2.2). Of course the drive also supports the CD format featuring 40x writing for CD-R and 32x for CD-RW media (Ultra-speed).

LabelFlash technology will allow owners of the new DVR-A12J series to directly create labels on the disc label surface. For better results, Pioneer recommends to use LabelFlash with Fujifilm DVD media.



Other technologies of the new drives include the "UltraDRA" (Dynamic Resonance Absorber), buffer under run protection, the "Precision recording technology", and the "PowerRead" function. The later technology has been developed by Japanese Buffalo and allows scratched DVD media to be read correctly by the drive.

The Japanese retail package includes Cyberlink PowerDVD v6 for DVD playback, PowerProducer v3 for DVD/CD authoring, Power2Go v5, InstantBurn v5 for packet writing, PowerBackup v2 for personal backup, Medi@Show v3, LabelPrint v2 software that supports the Labelflash technology and Pioneer's Quiet sound utility, which limits the disc's rotation speed for quiet playback.

Pioneer will not release the DVR-A12J series overseas, but a variation of the same drive dubbed DVR-112 (for OEMs) should be expected early 2007 in Europe and U.S..