In many ways, the DVR-R100 is a lot like Pioneer's previous DVD writer, the DVR-A09XL. Looking at the specifications alone, the drives differ only in their maximum recording speed of DVD±R DL and CD-RW media. However, when you start looking at how each drive performs, you will notice a number of large differences.
I think it is a safe bet to say the DVR-R100 needs a lot of work when it comes to supporting different types of media. Out of almost 90 discs tested, I would say the drive performed well with approximately 20%-25% of them. This is a very significant drop in performance from Pioneer's previous drive, the DVR-A09XL. Of course, the DVR-A09XL also started out with less then stellar media support, but was able to catch up to competing drives with the help of several rather crucial firmware updates. Hopefully the same will eventually be true for the DVR-R100 as well.
Unfortunately, it wasn't just the burn quality that lagged behind with the DVR-R100. When testing the DVR-R100's reading and writing speeds, it trailed behind the drives from the competition. This is not to say that the drive did not perform up to its specifications. It's just that in some cases these specifications are below what has now become a standard for most drives. One exception however would be the drive's ability to burn DVD-R DL at 8x. In this one test, Pioneer's new drive was able to shine, with respect to the time taken to burn a full disc. Unfortunately, the quality of the disc was seriously compromised in the process, and throttling the burn speed is recommended.
One of the biggest faults with the DVR-R100 is it's lack of support for RW media. Most 4x DVD-RW's performed poorly with this drive, and only one out of three types of 8x DVD+RW's were supported at their proper rated speed. CD-RW discs weren't exempt from this problem. Much of the 24x and 32x CD-RW media we tried did not burn properly and had problems when the disc was played back. Verbatim brand CD-RW's performed the best by far, but even then, it was only select types.
I should take this opportunity to mention how bitsetting works on this drive. For DVD+R media, the drive is unable to set the booktype to DVD-ROM. With DVD+RW media it's almost the same. However, if the book type has previously been set to DVD-ROM by a different burner, erasing and re-recording the disc on the DVR-R100 will not modify the book type in any way. This situation does not affect whether or not the drive is able to burn the disc successfully. As with many drives these days, all DVD+RDL media is automatically bitset to DVD-ROM to help with compatibility issues.
In my opinion, this drive has many kinks that still need to be worked out with firmware updates. However as was mentioned earlier, that does not make this drive a hopeless cause. Rather I would recommend keeping a close eye on what new updates come out for it in the future.
| Pioneer DVR-R100 16x DVD±RW | |
| Features: Installation: Performance: |
7 8 5 |
| Overall: | 7 |
Highs:
- Writes to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 16x
- Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
- Writes to DVD-RW media at 6x
- Writes to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media at
- Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 16x
- Reads DVD±R media at 12x
- Reads DVD±RW at 8x
- Reads DVD±R DL at 8x
- Features 40x CD-R and 32x CD-RW writing speeds
- Good CD writing quality
- Features buffer underrun protection
- Automatically sets book type to DVD-ROM for DVD+R DL media
- Includes software from Ulead and NovaStor
Lows:
- Questionable writing quality on many 16x DVD±Rs
- Questionable writing quality with most DVD±R DL media
- Poor writing quality with UltraSpeed CD-RW media
- Slow transfer rates on most media formats
- Cannot set the book type of DVD+R or DVD+RW media
- Has a 2048KB buffer
- Doesn't support the Mt. Rainier format
- Overburns to only 94:27
- Cannot read CD-R's larger than 94:00
