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The specifications of the Pioneer DVR-107D state that the drive is able to write CD-R discs at 24x. Let us find out how the drive really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

For our data writing tests, we simply set up a new compilation of 700Mb using Nero Burning ROM software. Writing method used is DAO (Disc At Once), and the disc is set up as a non-multisession disc with 'finalize disc" enabled. The screenshot below shows how long it takes to write a disc at the highest speed. (24x):

The drive used 4 minutes and 21 seconds to write the disc at 24x. Let us see how this compares to other drives; the NEC ND-2500A used 3 minutes and 43 seconds for the same writing operation at 32x speed, and the Plextor PX-708A used 2 minutes and 58 seconds at 40x. But speed is not everything, quality is even more important, so let us take a look at the writing quality of this drive.

Write Quality:

We will test CD-R discs from a total of 11 different CD-R manufacturers. To really measure the write speed, we used the 'create data CD" function in Nero CD-Speed. The discs were written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. For the quality test, we used K-Probe which is a tool developed by a Lite-On Employee. It runs under Windows and works with drives made by Lite-On. Also note that different drives and different reading speeds may affect the results obtained when scanning the discs. We used a Lite-On LTR-52246S drive with firmware 6S0F and scanned the discs at 48X speed.

A written CD-R disc will always have some C1 errors; C1 errors are easily corrected by the drive's error correction capabilities. The next level of errors is C2, while C2 errors could also be corrected by most drive's error correction capabilities, they are not wanted on a good quality disc. A good disc should not contain any C2 errors, and preferably have an average C1 error amount of below 2.0 average for the best discs, or at least below 10.0 average for good quality discs. After C2 errors there are only un-correctable errors that will make a disc unusable.

Why wait any longer? Below are the obtained results:

CMC Magnetics is not known for making the best CD-R discs but the Pioneer DVR-107D is still able to produce an acceptable result, although not perfect.

This is one of the better results we have been able to get with these discs, highly recommended discs for this drive.

Highly recommended discs! These discs should not cause any problems either.

Also highly recommended discs.

Right where it should be for Taiyo Yuden CD-R discs, this is also one of the best results we have ever had with Taiyo Yuden CD-R discs.

While some other writers have problems with these CD-R discs, the Pioneer DVR-107D did not have any problems and wrote the disc perfectly. Highly recommended.

We have found these Samsung CD-R discs, manufactured by Plasmon, to be of very low quality, and as we could see the Pioneer DVR-107D also had a few writing problems with these discs. When shopping for discs there, are other brands to pick before these.

Again a new record, we have never been able to get such good results with these discs before. Highly recommended.

Princo is not known for making the best quality discs, but the Pioneer DVR-107D wrote them without any problems.

The result is good enough with these discs as well, but we have seen several other writers write these discs with better results. Room for a bit of improvement.

While TDK is a well-known brand in larger parts of the world, their own manufactured CD-R discs may not be so well known, as they are mostly only available in Europe. But the Pioneer DVR-107D was still able to make a good result with these discs.

Summary:

All in all very good. Only the Samsung (Plasmon) disc was not written correctly, but we have seen that these discs are of a very low quality. So it gets a plus in our book for CD-Writing quality, but it also gets a minus in our book for only supporting 24x writing speed.

But after all, it's a DVD-Writer, so head on to next page and read about DVD-Writing performance and DVD media compatibility…