Pioneer DVR-2920Q Qflix 20x DVD±RW/RAM

While CPU, memory, OS and other variables don't often make a huge difference, there are some nonetheless. We have a computer that is used only for testing hardware. We do this so all tests can be compared reliably.

Test System:

For DVD writers the performance tests are broken down into four sections: CD read, CD write, DVD read and DVD write tests. Each benchmark test has been run three times. The score given is an average of the three. DMA has been enabled in device manager for all IDE devices supporting it.

CD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the CD-ROM benchmarks, CD WinBench 99 and CD Speed are used to test transfer speeds, seek times and CPU usage. For DAE testing, CD Speed is used to give an overall speed rating and is used in combination with CD DAE to see how well a drive reads scratched and dirty discs.

CD Write Tests: To test the write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 700MB to our test media. Times are recorded. To test rewrite scores, Nero is used again to time how long it takes to write 400MB of random files and directories. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

DVD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the DVD benchmarks, CD Speed is used to test read speeds, seek times, and CPU usage.

DVD Write Tests: To test the DVD write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 4GB to our test media. Times are recorded. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

CD Winbench 99 Scores:

The CD Winbench test is as close as we can get to testing every day usage. It fires off eight different applications using scripts. This tries to mimic the activities of a person loading these programs onto their own computer.

Pioneer's new DVD writer gave us some mixed performance in our CD Winbench tests. In the transfer speed tests, the drive started reading at 14.3x (2140 / 150) and reached a maximum speed of about 38.1x (5720 / 150) on the outside. While this is fairly good for a drive with a maximum read speed of 40x, the DVR-2020Q's overall score was not as high as some of the other DVD writers we've looked at. 

CD Speed v4.7.7.7 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used a pressed CD containing one Mode 1 data track. The disc is 74:38 in size and is full of data and directories.

 

	Pioneer DVR-2920Q	Pioneer DVR-116D	Optiarc AD-7200S	Samsung SH-S203N
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	31.29x 18.13x 41.37x	31.31x 18.09x 41.43x	35.50x 20.41x 46.96x	35.96x 20.75x 47.55x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	109ms 126ms 193ms	108ms 128ms 197ms	143ms 157ms 236ms	102ms 105ms 177ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	4% 3% 5% n/a	4% 4% 6% n/a	16% 1% 2% 4%	0% 1% 2% 4%

The DVR-2020Q performed a little better in our CD Speed tests. While still not as fast as the drives from Optiarc and Samsung, it had no problems reaching a maximum speed of 41.37x.

CD Speed v4.7.7.7 - CD-R Media:

For this test I made a copy of our pressed test CD. I used 12x rated Memorex Gold 74 minute media for the tests.

The DVR-2020Q was a little faster when reading CD-R media. While this still wasn't enough to top the drives from Optiarc and Samsung, it reached a maximum read speed of 41.96x.

Unfortunately, Pioneer's new drive had some trouble reading our 99 minute CompUSA media. While the DVR-2020Q was able to recognize the disc correctly, it would not read beyond the 94 minute mark. 

CD Speed v4.7.7.7 - CD-RW Media:

For this test I made a copy of a pressed test CD. I used some PNY 80 minute CD-RW media for the tests.

When reading CD-RW media, the DVR-2020Q's transfer speeds are limited to only 32x. While Pioneer's new writer had no problems reaching this speed in our tests, it was still the slowest out of the four drives here.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.7.7.7 (DAE) - Pressed CD:

For this test I used Pure Funk. The CD is almost exactly 74 minutes. This helps to squeeze the maximum performance out of the CD.

Exact Audio Copy can tell us a lot about a drive's capabilities. You can see from the screen shot that while the Pioneer DVR-2920Q supports accurate stream, caches audio data and has the ability to retrieve C2 error information from audio CD's.  

 

CD Speed	Pioneer DVR-2920Q	Pioneer DVR-116D	Optiarc AD-7200S	Samsung SH-S203N
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	31.26x 18.84x 41.35x 10 Yes	31.29x 18.85x 41.40x 10 Yes	30.89x 17.71x 40.00x 10 Yes	30.93x 17.76x 40.86x 10 Yes

The DVR-2020Q did fairly well in our DAE tests. While not nearly as fast as some of the other DVD writers we've tested, it had no problems ripping pressed audio CD's at 41x.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.7.7.7 (DAE) - CD-R Media:

For this test I used a copy of the Pure Funk CD. It's burned onto the same Memorex Gold 74 minute media I used in the CD Speed tests.

While the DVR-2020Q was a little slower when extracting audio from CD-R media, this didn't keep it from reaching a maximum DAE speed of 41x. So how did it do in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

Pioneer's DVD writer completed CD Speed's advanced DAE tests with an average score of 28.74x. While the drive went through all of the tests without creating any errors, it was unable to pass all of the on the fly copying tests. If you look at the advanced features, you can see that the DVR-2020Q was able to read the CD-Text and subchannel data but failed to read the lead in and lead out sections of the CD.

To see how well the DVR-2020Q can read scratched and dirty discs, I used CD Speed's ScanDisc utility to see how many sectors were damaged or unreadable. This is a very rough, but good way to test the drive's error correcting abilities.

CD Speed - ScanDisc

The DVR-2920Q didn't handle scratched discs as well as some of the other DVD writers we've looked at recently. While there weren't any unreadable sectors on the disc, the drive considered more than 85% of the CD to be "damaged."

You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. The application extracts the audio tracks twice and then compares them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.

The DVR-2020Q gave us some mixed results in this test.  While the scratches on the disc had little effect on the drive's speed, the number of errors was a little higher than what I'd like to see.