Pioneer DVR-R100 16x DVD±RW

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 Speed v4.01 is used to test read speeds, seek times and CPU usage. For DAE testing both CD Speed and CD DAE are used. CD Speed is used to give an overall DAE speed rating and CD DAE is used to give the track by track extraction speeds and to check the extracted tracks for errors the drive may have created.

CD Write Tests: To test the write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 650MB and 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 v4.01 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 4.38GB 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 Speed v4.01 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used a pressed CD containing Mixed Data. The disc is ~71:48 in size and is full of data and directories.

Pioneer's new DVD writer performed fairly well when reading pressed media. While not as fast as the PX-716A, it had no problems exceeding its rated speed, reaching a maximum transfer rate of 41.46x.

CD Speed v4.01 - CD-R Media:

For this test I used a CD ISO of several folders several hundred small files totaling about 650MB. I used 52x rated MAM-A Gold 74 minute media for the tests.

The DVR-R100 was a little faster when reading CD-R media. While this still wasn't enough to top the drive from Plextor, it had no problems reaching a maximum read speed of 42.64x. Unfortunately, the Pioneer's seek times were also higher than what we saw with pressed discs.

Pioneer's newest drive had some problems playing back our 99 minute Ritek media. The drive is unable to read beyond the 94min mark on the CD-R. The image below shows a 99min CD-R with 90min worth of data recorded on to it.

CD Speed v4.01 - CD-RW Media:

For this test I used Nero CD Speed to create a Data CD. I used some Memorex 4x 80 minute CD-RW media for the tests.

The DVR-R100 did not perform as well as other drives when reading CD-RW media. It not only had the slowest transfer speeds, its seek times were again higher than we'd like to see.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.01 - Pressed Audio CD:

For this test I used The Original Lightfoot, disc 2 of 3. The CD is almost exactly 74 minutes. This helps to squeeze the maximum performance out of the drive.

Exact Audio Copy can tell us a lot about a drive's capabilities. You can see from the screen shot that while the DVR-R100 supports accurate stream and cache's audio, it does not have the ability to retrieve C2 error information.

The Pioneer DVR-R100 performed very slowly when ripping pressed audio CD's. With a maximum DAE speed of 38.69x, it came in dead last when compared with other drives currently on the market. This is likely due to the very jagged transfer rate graph, as shown in the screenshot above.

To get a better look at the quality of the extracted audio we use CD DAE. CD DAE is actually designed to be an audio ripping program. It converts the CD-DA on the CD to .wav files. We use it in our testing because it can also be used as a quick and easy way to test the quality. Where CD Speed tests the DAE as one large session, CD DAE extracts each CD track individually. It actually extracts each track twice and then compares them to check for any errors. Every error a drive creates could be a hiss or pop you would hear later in the audio tracks.

Pioneer's new DVD writer started out at a pretty good pace. However, by the end of the extraction process, the average and maximum speeds were not as fast as some of the other drives in this test.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.01 - CD-R Media:

For this test I used a copy of The Original Lightfoot, disc 2 of 3. It's burned onto Fuji brand Prodisc 48x 80 minute media.

The DVR-R100 was a little faster when extracting audio from CD-R media. Thanks to this small speed boost, it had no problems reaching a maximum DAE speed of 40.86x. How did it do in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

Pioneer's new DVD writer completed CD Speed's advanced DAE tests with an average score of 27.61x. The drive did not create any errors, but for whatever reason, it was not able to pass all of the on-the-fly copying tests. In the advanced features tests, the DVR-R100 was able to read the CD-Text and subchannel data but was not able to read the lead in or lead out sections of the CD.

To see how well Pioneer's new drive 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 rough way of testing the drive's error correcting abilities.

CD Speed - ScanDisc

Pioneer's new drive 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 DVR-R100 considered 76% of the CD to be "damaged." It was also forced to slow down to an average of 9.86x over the course of the CD.

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

As you can see from the above results, the DVR-R100 slowed down to an average speed of 6.9x over the course of the whole 74min disc. The reduced speed however, was a bit of a trade off in the long run, since the drive was able to read all but 3.17% of the scratched disc without errors. But once again, when comparing these results to those of the other drives, these results seem a little below average.