Pioneer DVR-112 DVD Burner Review

Pioneer DVR-112 detail information

Posted by	Wendy Collins
Posted on	24/03/07 17:58
Manufacturer	Pioneer
Product	Pioneer DVR-112
Description	18x DVD burner supporting DVD-RAM and 10x DVD DL writing speed
Awards	Editor's Choice Award

CD-R/RW Writing performance

DVD+R/RW Writing performance

DVD-R/RW Writing performance

DVD+R DL/-R DL Writing performance

DVD-RAM Read and write performance

Advanced tests

Text Size Text Size

DVD+R DL/ R DL Writing performance

DVD+R/-R Double Layer writing performance and quality:

The Pioneer DVR-112 supports the DVD+R DL/-R DL standard for writing Double Layer/Dual Layer discs with a size around 8.5 GB at a writing speed of 10x.

For these tests we pre-authored several video clips into an image file and burned the resulting image in Nero Burning Rom. We then used the Lite-On LH-20A1P along with KProbe to test the discs quality; we then finally ran a read-back test on our Optiarc AD-7173A using Nero CD-Speed.

DVD+R DL:

Brand:	Verbatim – Thanks to Verbatim (UK) for providing the sample.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Kagaku Media
Code:	MKM 003
Disc Type:	DVD+R DL
Capacity:	8103MB
Certified Speed:	8x
Write Speed:	10x (Z-CLV)
Write Time:	15m:57s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	1.73
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.02
BookType	DVD-ROM

The Pioneer DVR-112 burned our 8x rated Verbatim media in 15 minutes and 57 seconds. Writing quality is excellent and the media was burned faster than its rated speed.

Brand:	Infiniti – Thanks to Medea International (UK) for providing the sample.
Manufacturer:	CMC Magnetics
Code:	CMC MAG D01
Disc Type:	DVD+R DL
Capacity:	8103MB
Certified Speed:	2.4x
Write Speed:	2.4x (CLV)
Write Time:	45m:21s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	3.19
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec :	0.06
BookType	DVD-ROM

The Pioneer DVR-112 burned our 2.4x rated Infiniti media in 45 minutes and 19 seconds. Writing quality is very good.

Brand:	Verbatim – Thanks to Verbatim (UK) for providing the sample.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Kagaku Media
Code:	MKM 001
Disc Type:	DVD+R DL
Capacity:	8103MB
Certified Speed:	2.4x
Write Speed:	8x (Z-CLV)
Write Time:	17m:36s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	8.35
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.15
BookType	DVD-ROM

The Pioneer DVR-112 burned our 2.4x rated Verbatim media in 17 minutes and 36 seconds. The result is good and the media was burned much faster than its rated speed.

DVD-R DL:

Brand:	Verbatim – Thanks to Verbatim (UK) for providing the sample.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Kagaku Media
Code:	MKM 03RD30
Disc Type:	DVD-R DL
Capacity:	8103MB
Certified Speed:	8x
Write Speed:	10x (Z-CLV)
Write Time:	15m:38s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	3.84
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.02
BookType	DVD-R

The Pioneer DVR-112 burned our Verbatim 8x media in 15 minutes and 38 seconds, with very good writing quality. The media was also burned faster than its rated speed.

Brand:	Verbatim – Thanks to Verbatim (UK) for providing the sample.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Kagaku Media
Code:	MKM 01RD30
Disc Type:	DVD-R DL
Capacity:	8103MB
Certified Speed:	4x
Write Speed:	8x (Z-CLV)
Write Time:	16m:59s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	15.11
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.04
BookType	DVD-R

The Pioneer DVR-112 burned our Verbatim 4x rated test media in 16 minutes and 59 seconds, the writing quality is very good considering the media was written at twice its rated speed.

Standalone DVD-Player compatibility:

We only have 3 standalone DVD-Players available and 1 standalone DVD-RAM DVD-R recorder to test the DVD+R DL medias (Book Type: DVD-ROM) and the DVD-R DL media (Book Type: DVD-R):

Panasonic DVD-RV32
Panasonic SA-HT520
Proline DVDP350
Panasonic DMR-E50 recorder

Compatibility results:

All our DVD Standalone devices played the DVD+R DL media burned by the Pioneer DVR-112 without any problems.

Only one DVD Standalone device would play the Pioneer DVR-112 burned DVD-R DL media without any problems.

We would like to mention, that the compatibility issue with standalone DVD Players/Recorders and the DVD-R DL media format is caused by incompatibilities with the standalone devices used in this review, and not the Pioneer DVR-112 or media format used.

Summary:

The Pioneer DVR-112 burned our test DVD DL media with excellent/very good quality and most media was burned at faster than its rated speed.

Let’s head onto the next page where we will take a look at DVD-RAM performance….

DVD-R/RW Writing performance

DVD-RAM Read and write performance

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Reactions on this item

Posted by sean (guest) on Tuesday 27 March 2007 08:02

crap review where are the advance tests to test error correction and audio protections

Posted by Dee-27 on Tuesday 27 March 2007 14:35

@Sean
Protected audio CD's are not available in my location. Maybe you can send me some to test

Posted by Hypnosis4U2NV on Saturday 31 March 2007 01:56

Its a good review, thanks for posting its chipset..

Posted by Wischmop on Sunday 01 April 2007 20:20

I like that writer and review

Posted by unrealdude24 (guest) on Saturday 07 April 2007 14:49

I am confused as to why this drive got editors choice and the DRW-1612BL didn't as it is the only sheep 3 burner I have ever seen. What makes this burner better then the DRW-1612BL?

Posted by Dee-27 on Monday 09 April 2007 12:43

^ Writing quality on all media groups won it the award.

Posted by Victor Stolbovoy (guest) on Tuesday 10 April 2007 17:15

"As we can see from the screenshot below, the drive supports accurate stream and C2 error info and doesnâ€™t support caching."

Doesn't screenshot show contrary(C2 - no, cache - yes)? Or it is wrong screenshot?

Posted by Dee-27 on Tuesday 10 April 2007 18:38

^ Correct screenshot but wrong information. I corrected it now, thanks for reporting it.

Posted by ptch on Thursday 12 April 2007 18:57

This message was edited at: 12-04-2007 20:20

Posted by ptch on Thursday 12 April 2007 20:18

This message was edited at: 12-04-2007 20:20

Posted by ptch on Thursday 12 April 2007 20:21

I've bought this burner because of the "editors choice" and because it "can be used along with Nero CD-Speed for Disc Quality Scanningâ€. To my surprise Disc Quality Scanning is completely irrealistic (e.g. PIE is about 10 times higher that with Lite-ON). Googling showed that it's a known problem of all Pioneer burners. For example, see that link
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/t319198.html
Please update the review, because it's misleading.

Posted by Dee-27 on Sunday 15 April 2007 11:28

Other makes of drives report PI/PIF errors differently than Lite-On and Plextor drives, NEC and BenQ for example.
The fact is they do support PI/PIF scanning just like the Pioneer drives do and that is all that is claimed in the review.

Posted by ptch on Tuesday 17 April 2007 14:45

Pioneers do report the errors, but PIE level is far beyond the 280 set by DVD+/-R specifivation. Consequently that reporting has a very limited utility.

In addition huge spikes (up to PIE > 17 000) are often present on the graphs.

Your answer reminds me an old story with hotel reservation in India. If you just reserve a room with aircond there is a great chance that it will not working. In fact you must always precise "with working aircond" while booking.

I refolmulate me request. Could you please precise in the review that although the error reporting is indeed working, but the PIE level always exeeds the DVD+/-R specs. That is not the case with Lite-on, BENQ, NEC and Plextor.

Posted by Dee-27 on Tuesday 17 April 2007 14:58

"but the PIE level always exeeds the DVD+/-R specs. That is not the case with Lite-on, BENQ, NEC and Plextor."
This is not the case, BenQ and NEC drives often report out of spec scans on perfectly good burns. The Pioneer scan in the review is within specifcation.

Posted by ptch on Tuesday 17 April 2007 15:42

OK, the aircond is blowing the air. And we don't care that the air is hot

Posted by Modd3r1 (guest) on Friday 27 April 2007 14:48

has anyone used this burner with the wytron 688 ? i am 5 of them with a wytron 688 andhave been burning successfully at 8x, just wondering if anyone is burning at a faster rate with success.

Posted by Jason (guest) on Saturday 05 May 2007 23:01

CRAP! Pioneer SUCK!, i have just returned my 5th drive for replacement, dont buy this shit, pioneer drives are cheap for a reason, they suck!.

I guarantee if you buy this, you will have lazer failiure in months, you have been warned.

Posted by r_saotome on Sunday 06 May 2007 06:14

Bought BestBuy's version of the DVR-112D, died inside of a week.

A week later bought 2 Pioneer DVR-112D's from NewEgg, both of them are still working perfectly since March 2007, nothing but smooth sailing.

Also, overall the best DVD burner I've owned, next to the BenQ 1640...^_^

Posted by ecn (guest) on Wednesday 09 May 2007 05:32

return my 112D. It will just stop writing on Verbatim/Sony/Philips and hang the whole computer.

Posted by dvddvd on Sunday 20 May 2007 23:19

This test is very funny because it's so misleading.

It totally ignores the lack of write quality as revealed in the well-known German computer magazine "c't" issue 2007/11 p. 122 which affects not only the Pioneer DVR-112 but a couple of new competitors drives as well.

Compared to an old test where they tested the DVR-111 (which I own) the write quality of the DVR-111 exceeded the write quality of the DVR-112 except for CD-R where the DVR-112 was better.

If these problems are not firmware based I would rather buy a DVR-111 again than a DVR-112.

c't assumes that the enourmous price pressure may have caused the degraded write quality with those new drives (not only Pioneer!) in their test.

Posted by Brutus (guest) on Thursday 12 July 2007 13:54

I bought 3 of these. All are now in the bin. 2 would still burn DVD's but won't read or write CD's!!!
I'm looking for some 110's or even 111's to replace them with.
Might try lite-on's instead next batch. Nightmare for me as a supplier. Cost me heaps ... just replacing discs alone.

Posted by denbo (guest) on Monday 16 July 2007 11:43

Took 46 minutes to read 26% of a test-recorded dvd-ram of just 1minute 48 seconds recording time.
No problem with any other type of disc. Awaiting advice from Pioneer.
Had 111D before this burner, excellent performer but couldn't write to dvd-ram.

Posted by George (guest) on Saturday 08 September 2007 19:06

My Plextor PX-760A failed again, my first PX-760A lived only 12 months, then I purchased a PX760A - lived for 5 months. The returned unit wrote disks at very bad quality and was replaced 2 weeks after. 6 months after that, on 2007-September 4th I just sent that 3rd PX-760A for warranty services. It did about 15 Excellent quality recordings on DVD+R16 Plextor media (I haven't used it more), but now it stopped writing on DVD+/-RW. That's total of 4 recorders send for warranty services, I'm waiting to receive the 5th. I have 9 more months remaining for warranty services, I bet it won't make it

By the way I'm going to buy another brand recorder for fail safe. Plextor - King of the quality? Well yes, but as well king of short life and failures! My opinion: never again!

I wonder what should I buy for second (backup-reserve) recorder? I was just thinking about Pioneer, while reading this review, when I read in the previous comments that they live short too. What a shame on Pioneer!

Posted by jhg (guest) on Wednesday 19 September 2007 02:21

Stays in PIO mode, can't seem to force it into DMA. Thus, record speed maxes at 1X for DVD+RW. Bleah!

Posted by Peter (guest) on Tuesday 15 January 2008 00:49

Replaced my first one for a second and this second one seems to have problems with audio extraction, some glitches which a generic DVD-reader doesn't produce...

Posted by Bubba (guest) on Thursday 01 May 2008 04:44

I added two of these drives when I built a new system in January. I finally got me some ultra high speed CR-RWs (24X rewrite speed)from Memorix as I tend to create a lot of CDs that I rewrite often. Looks like this drive has issues re-writing to this brand of CD-RWs at anything over 12x. I've had mulitple verification failures at speeds of 16x or higher. Testing using the latest CDSpeed Nero utility now called DiskSpeed not DriveSpeed. AFAIK I have the latest firmware...124.
Gonna replace both of these with some newer DVR-115's

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