detail information

The specifications of the Pioneer DVR-109 state that the drive is able to write CD-R discs at 40x. Let us find out how the drive really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

Let us first take a look at the CD-R write technology used by the Pioneer DVR-109:

As we could see, the Pioneer DVR-109 uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write at its rated speed of 40x, this gives an average speed of 30.39x. This seems to be average for a 40x CD-Writer.

The Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9 uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write at its rated speed of 48x. This gives an average speed of 36.38x.

As we could see the Plextor PX-712A uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) writing strategy to reach it rated speed of 48X. This gives an average speed of 36.43x.

And as a last test we wrote a disc containing 700Mb using Nero Burning ROM software. Writing method used is DAO (Disc At Once), and the disc is set up as a non multi-session disc with 'finalize disc" enabled.

The Pioneer DVR-109 used 3 minutes and 31 seconds to write the disc at 40x. Let us see how this compares to other drives:

It's among the slower drives due to the writing speed of only 40x, we would like to see 48x like the majority of other drives offer.

Write Quality:

We will test CD-R discs from a total of 8 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 2 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 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 result with the Pioneer DVR-109 is pretty good.

Wrote at 32x P-CAV only, but the quality is very good.

Good quality with Mitsubishi/Verbatim media, highly recommended.

The result with the Ritek CD-R media is very good, but it unfortunately only written at 32x Z-CLV.

Good, but there is a noticeable increase in C1 errors at the end. We did try two discs of different brands with the same problem at the end, so we believe it's a problem with the drive.

The result is good, but it wrote at 32x P-CAV only.

Not the highest quality media, but the result is still ok - although only at 32x. Strange that it now wrote using Z-CLV strategy.

Wrote at 32x Z-CLV only, but the result is pretty good.

CD-ReWritable:

The Pioneer DVR-109 supports a CD-ReWriting speed of 24x, let us see how this compares to other writers. Let us start with taking a look at the writing strategy it uses:

The Pioneer DVR-109 uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its rated speed of 24x, this gives an average speed of 22.45x. This seems to be about average compared to other drives, but let us include some other results for comparison.

The Pioneer DVR-107D uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its rated speed of 24x, this gives an average speed of 22.47x.

The Plextor PX-712A, with its P-CAV (Partial-Constant Angular Velocity) write speed of 24X for Ultra Speed CD-RW discs is among the faster writers due to its high starting speed of 21.12x.

And we did also write a disc in Nero Burning ROM, the compilation we made was 650Mb large and we wrote the disc with the Disc At Once write method.

The Pioneer DVR-109 used 4 minutes and 14 seconds for writing the disc at 24x, let us compare this to some other writers:

Among the slower drives, partly due to a bit slow Z-CLV writing strategy. But let us take a look at the writing quality with two CD-RW discs.

No C2 errors, but still not the best result we have seen with this disc type. But we have seen much worse results as well.

Low quality discs, and as we could see the result is not good at all.

Summary:
We do not have any complaints about CD-R writing quality, but CD-RW writing quality could be improved. But the drawbacks are that it writes CD-R discs at 40x only, and that very few discs is supported at this speed. Most discs are supported at 32x Z-CLV or 32x CAV only.

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