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Hardware

Pioneer DVR-A05 Review 176

Posted by Hemos from the learning-'bout-it dept.
kila_m writes " Over at DVD Writers we have the world's first review of the recently announced Pioneer DVR-A05 DVD writer. It supports 4 speed DVD-R writing, 2 speed DVD-RW, 16 speed CD-R and is able to write to CD-RW disks at 8 speed. The review is based on a pre-release unit and is fairly comprehensive. " The review itself is one level deeper.
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Pioneer DVR-A05 Review More

Pioneer DVR-A05 Review

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  • Why don't they ever clarify (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21, 2002 @08:50AM (#4494536)
    how foobar speed DVD relates to foobar speed CD?

    Who will be the first to announce a DVD recorder that is 56x *

    * Oh, by the way, that's equivillant to 56x CD, added by our marketing department :-)

    Also, as DVDs are thinner than CDs, can they spin faster without breaking???

    • Re:Why don't they ever clarify (Score:5, Informative)

      by khuber ( 5664 ) on Monday October 21, 2002 @09:07AM (#4494610)
      The amount of data transferred per x is about 9:1, i.e. 8x DVD is approximately 76x CDROM.

      -Kevin

    • Re:Why don't they ever clarify (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      CD[-R[W]] speeds are relative to the standard speed of an audio CD (153.6 kbps).

      DVD speeds are relative to the standard speed of a movie DVD (1,108 kbps).
    • Troll much?

      CD 1x is the speed required to playback an audio CD. DVD 1x is probably something along similar lines. IIRC DVDs are nonimally encoded around 10Mbps which makes a DVD 1x roughly a CD 7.14x or so...

      Of course I shooting from the hip here since I don't have any DVD specifications handy...

      Tom

    • Can they? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Sheetrock ( 152993 )
      As I understand it, there are a number of constraints that would make a straight comparison impossible.

      For one thing, the complexity of the electronics they've got to jam in the drive goes up because they need hardware to interpret CD and DVD. Also, there are something like three different wavelengths to support with the laser (CD-R, CD-RW, and DVD) IIRC.

      Technically, the drive will be capable of spinning both at the same speed, but it's the interpretation of the data that comes in that is the limiting factor in this case.

      • Re:Can they? (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        CD and CD-RW don't need different lasers. They have different different power requirements in write mode and reflectivity, that's it. In my opinion they should just say x MB/s max (and y MB/s min and CLV/CAV if the marketing department doesn't stop them).
    • how foobar speed DVD relates to foobar speed CD?

      rtfa [dvdwriters.co.uk]
      it explains right there:
      DVD-R @ 4x, 5.54MB/s
      CD-R @ 16x, 2.46MB/s
      (40/16)*2.46=6.15, so CD-R @ 40x is 6.15MB/s
      and (5.54/4)/(2.46/16)=9.00813 (so khuber's above statement is right)

      ...but i'm still waiting for the DVR media standard to match the DVD media standard regarding disk size;
      #1 reason you can't copy a commercial DVD is that it's twice as big.
      and I would LOVE 9GB disks...
      • I would LOVE 9GB disks

        DVDs that are not writable, like those they put movies on, are 9.4 GB in size, because they contain two 4.7 GB layers per disc. As yet, no one has had much luck creating a writer that can burn on two different layers, so we're limited to single layer discs for writing DVDs at home.

        Double sided DVD-R media are available, so it's still possible to fit an entire move onto one disc, as long as you don't mind flipping it half-way through.

        Out of all the movies on DVD I've purchased, Stargate for some reason is formatted on a 4.7 GB per side disc and requires that it be flipped half-way through the movie... weird...

  • Slot Loader? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm still waiting for Pioneer (or anyone) to make a slot-loading CD-RW / DVD-RW/+RW drive. Their slot loading DVD drives are fantastic.

    Nobody seems to make them. Does anyone know if there's a reason why?

  • Hmm... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does anyone know if this is an ATAPI burner? Can it be used by existing software?
    • It IS an ATAPI writer, that is what the A- stands for in this product line. There WERE S- ones but i know they used to make the S-01 and i THINK they made the S-02, but AFAIK that is as far as it went.

      I think that the first macs that came with DVD-R came with an OEM S-01

  • DVR A03 (Score:5, Informative)

    by root_42 ( 103434 ) on Monday October 21, 2002 @08:56AM (#4494566) Homepage
    We are using the DVR A03 here for backup purposes and hacking together Linux DVDs. I must say that this device really is great. Pioneer support is also quite good. The writer died a couple of weeks ago, but an exchange device came only a few days later.
    And with DVD-R media at about 3,- EUR and DVD-RW at 6,- it also becomes a feasible alternative to CD-R/RW. The old DVR A03 also costs "only" 300,- EUR now. That's a price many people might be willing to pay, and when the DVR A05 hits the stores, I think prices will fall even more.
    • So how long did you have the drive before it died? Do you have an estimate of how many "hours" it burned before it crapped out?
    • And with DVD-R media at about 3,- EUR and DVD-RW at 6,- it also becomes a feasible alternative to CD-R/RW.
      In the United States, at least, you can actually get media even cheaper than that. [meritline.com]

      NOTE: I do not work for Meritline, but I have ordered DVD-R/RW media from them several times in the past and have always received prompt shipment of working media, generic brand or otherwise.

  • Looks Good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by e8johan ( 605347 ) on Monday October 21, 2002 @08:57AM (#4494567) Homepage Journal
    I hope that I actually get the manual in the complete release:

    "The package contains:

    1 x Pioneer DVR-105 DVD Writer
    1 x Manual (online)     "

    I'd have to say that it looks good, even the cons section had an awful lot of items solved by having a second read-only drive (which you usually have).

    When on the subject I'd like to discuss a reliability issue. Burned CDs, and even more CDRWs, have a tendency to break after a while (don't expect a CDRW to hold data more than 1-2 years). Judging from the added complexity I doubt that burned DVDs are better. How does a burned DVD rate as a backup media? What is the error rate compared to your average tape?
    • I believe "online" means "burnt on a CD/DVD".
      • I still prefer a printed book. That is, if there is any useful info in it. Usually ATAPI units like this just plug and plays nicely. Since the software burners ship with usually is crap you don't have to bother about that either, just install the drivers, start Nero (or cdrecord from Linux) and burn away.
      • What good is a manual on a CD, when you want the manual to tell you how to install the drive?

        (I know most people won't need it, but think of the beginners)
        • that is what the full color, fold out poster is for. the manual belongs on the CD/DVD possibly online, but the install guide should be on a glossy poster, that folds out. All the better retail kits have them.

    • How are you storing the cd's? (Score:4, Informative)

      by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Monday October 21, 2002 @09:11AM (#4494628) Journal
      I have cd-r's that are still good after several years. Of course, I store them properly. Don't leave them out in direct light, don't let them get too hot, etc. A cd-r, properly stored, should last decades.

      Heck, I've got audio cd-rs that I burned a few years back that are still fine, even though they've spent quite a bit of time in the car.

    • Re:Looks Good (Score:1, Redundant)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )
      i can just see it now, mp3 player marketers to action:

      package contains

      1 portable audio device.
      543534986409564 songs (online).

      (how does somebody contain something in a box that isn't really in the box but somewhere else?)
    • I have CDR discs I burned seven years ago on my old 1x CDR drive that are still fine today. In fact, I've never had a disc go bad, out of several hundred I've burned since then.

    • Re:Looks Good (Score:3, Informative)

      by swb ( 14022 )
      I have 2 year old CD-Rs burned as audio CDs that are just fine, in spite of being stored and handled in the worst possible manner: in my car.

      I live in Minnesota, so we get 100 deg F heat in the summer, -30 F in the winter. I shove CDs 2-3 at a time into a single pocket in the visor holder, leave them on the seat, I park in the sun at home and at work and I have yet to have one quit on me.

      I also buy the cheapest brand X generics I can find, so its not like I'm buying expensive archival quality media.

      The only thing I do is burn them at 4x instead of 8x because they tend to skip more at 8x, but that's probably just a car/media/burner interaction problem.

    • Re:Looks Good (Score:4, Interesting)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Monday October 21, 2002 @11:34AM (#4495792)
      Burned CDs, and even more CDRWs, have a tendency to break after a while (don't expect a CDRW to hold data more than 1-2 years).
      Where did you get that? Try 200 years [cd-info.com].

      Granted, nobody will no for sure until these things start failing. But since most of us reading this have already had CDR-drives for more than the 1-2 years you estimate, we know you're wrong.

      • Where did you get that? Try 200 years [cd-info.com].

        Kodak is no longer in the CD-R market, having had its high quality gold-stabilized products pushed out by lesser quality product. However you can still get Mitsui product that uses the same chemistry. Disks using lower quality chemistries are very unlikely to last 200 years.

        • Disks using lower quality chemistries are very unlikely to last 200 years.

          That's okay, since I doubt anyone other than technological archaeologists will own a CDROM drive in 200 years.

          Anyone who has data they want to preserve will likely move it to another medium long before then. I know I'll consolidate my collection of archived material onto progressively higher-capacity formats as they become available.

      • I've had a Yahama burner whose first symptom of early death, in retrospect, was that some of the CDRs it wrote were unreadable after only 6 months of sitting in a reasonably climate-controlled room, with no direct sun, etc.

        So it's not impossible (indeed, some really cheap-assed media has been reported to lose data early too), tho it does look like poor data retention can be due to the burner itself being borderline-functional.

    • (don't expect a CDRW to hold data more than 1-2 years)
      Excuse me, I've had a CD-burner since the 2x models came out, and so far, some daily use (mp3 audio discs) had to be replaced, and some dropped CD-r Shattered, or had the top foil torn off. But not a Single of my archival discs has failed, in any way shape or form. In fact, the readability life on CD-R is anywhere from 50 years to 150 years. Negligence will destroy any archival media. Paper has to be kept dry, but not too dry, magnetic tape can't be exposed to the elements or strong magnetic fields, hard drives have the same limitations as magnetic tape, but also are very hard to salvage should there be a mechanical failure, and in some cases, the heads will actually destroy the data to the point where it is unretrievable. Flash media has a finite number of writes before it fails, and is essentially etched into glass, making it vulnerable to being shattered, although it is usually well packaged (at least compactflash, and flash memory HDs are reasonably well packaged.)
      IF your archival DVDs are properly stored in DVD cases, and you NEVER Touch them, instead, buring a Second 'usage' copy then You will Not have any problems with the reliability of the media, unless your archival site is burned down in a fire. A safe deposit box should keep your data CD/DVDs reasonably safe, as the only flamable material in a safe is well protected against fire, and the walls of the safe are designed to prevent theft, as well as fire, flood, and earthquake, some are even designed to protect valuables as well as the could assuming nuclear blasts had occured nearby. (eg: underground vaults, since there isn't much that can be done for an above ground vault, in the event that a nuclear bomb were dropped in the surrounding population center)
      If your CDs are wearing out in 2 years they aren't being treated like archival media. And for a person like you I'd reccomend investing in some carnuba wax, and protective top side labels. between the two you should be able to extend the average life of most CDs by another two years at least. (note: plastic is a protective label, paper is a writing label, and doesn't add signifigantly to scratch immunity on the topside. BTW, you might consider adding a UV protective coating to all your windows (you can find them on google, both clear, and tinted) if you're having problems with sunlight burning out the CD-r Tinted will work better, as it blocks more spectrum. Also, don't leave them sitting in your car, unless they're well shaded, and the car is well ventilated, because it can get hot enough to warp the plastic, even if the disc itself is in the shade, because of how hot a car can get.
  • It looks like this Christmas could be a good one for DVD writer sales. The price-point is now pretty reasonable for Joe Consumer. What's the state of the DVD editing/authoring software? I wonder if a highly rated bundle of a DVD writer and well reviewed software for Christmas could move enough units to begin to influence the war over recordable DVD formats...

    • Re:All I want for Christmas is my DVD writer... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Monday October 21, 2002 @09:11AM (#4494632) Homepage
      Yes and no...

      Joe Schmoe doesnt want a DVD writer except for one reason only... to write DVD's that have the home movies on them. currently the incompatability between burned DVD's and stand alone DVD players is so bad that even the seasoned DVD creators are standing back and waiting.. (No i do not have a DVD burner at home, only at work.. and on linux :-)

      Until they can make it as fool-proof as SVCD or VCD's on your dvd player... (my first firewire card came with videowaveIII that allowed me to capture/edit/burn to SVCD without even thinking... which is good for the average windows user.)

      DVD VIDEO creation is still difficult and iffy. and at $5.00 a pop for the cheapest DVD blank... Joe doesnt want to risk it not being playable in aunt nellies dvd player.
      • TDK 2x DVD-R spindle of 50, $125 [mwave.com]. So $2.50 per disc for name-brand blanks. I've been using the generic 2x DVD-R's on the same page without trouble (spindle of 25 for $45) on my DVR-A04 with dvdrecord under Red Hat 8. Non-2x-certified blanks are of course cheaper, but I don't burn enough discs to worry about that. I haven't tried burning DVD videos yet, I suspect my old Sony 530D deck won't like them, but new decks are cheap. Pinnacle's StudioDV 8 (Windoze) ought to be simple enough to use once I get time to play with it, I used v7 to burn VCDs.

  • Does look good. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by QuiK_ChaoS ( 190208 ) on Monday October 21, 2002 @09:05AM (#4494607) Homepage
    I am just wondering how many more Atapi drives have to come out before they phase of that stupid 1/8" Jack nad Volume control that no-one uses. Would make them easier to paint and mod.

    Of course everyone reading this probably uses them. I personaly never ever have.

  • SCSI (Score:3, Interesting)

    by alsta ( 9424 ) on Monday October 21, 2002 @09:08AM (#4494613)
    Where's the SCSI version? Seriously, why does it seem as CD-R/DVD-R drive manufacturers are abandoning SCSI? I realise that the dude who's getting a Dell has IDE and they probably sell more of those. I also realise the people out there who don't want to spend the extra cash on SCSI have a say in this. I further realise that there will be people who will say that they've never had a problem with IDE burners and good for them. I have had nothing but trouble with them and I will never purchase another again...

    SCSI burners work better and tend to last longer, although the only metric I have are my Plextors who have lasted a few years now. This is versus HP IDE burners which have both failed.

    So... Where's the SCSI version? Last time I checked, Plextor was the last reliable SCSI CD-RW drive vendor out there. Who/what/why would you recommend today? Are there any benefits to IDE burners (technically for the IDE interface, not just because they're newer and faster) over the SCSI counterparts?

    • Re:SCSI (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21, 2002 @09:15AM (#4494653)
      Just like you said SCSI/IDE are just interfaces. I think your point of failure is the HP drives, Hoss. Stop buying them.

      Benefits to IDE: Cheaper to buy, doesn't take up a spot on my SCSI chain (I've got devices that actually need U160 on there.)

      My recommendation: buy a cheap IDE controller (last time I checked Promise made one for $30) and a nice IDE burner. You'll see it utilize .3% more CPU, not worth spending $100+ more for a slower speed SCSI drive just to save that CPU.

      • Re:SCSI (Score:3, Informative)

        by runderwo ( 609077 )
        My recommendation: buy a cheap IDE controller (last time I checked Promise made one for $30) and a nice IDE burner.
        Uh, yeah, except add-in IDE cards generally go out of their way to mention that they are not to be used with ATAPI devices.

    • Re:SCSI (Score:5, Informative)

      by hatchet ( 528688 ) on Monday October 21, 2002 @09:17AM (#4494662) Homepage
      Because more and more companies are realizing that SCSI does not provide us with substantial performance advantage.. and only few high-end motherboards have scsi controllers on-board, but they all have ATA/IDE controllers.

      SCSI burners work better and tend to last longer, although the only metric I have are my Plextors who have lasted a few years now. This is versus HP IDE burners which have both failed.
      That has nothing to do with scsi/ide... my IDE Plextor did not fail in 2 years too. But friends HP did.

      Anyway.. we're all waiting for SATA. serial, cheap, faster, thinner cables, ...

      • Re:SCSI (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21, 2002 @09:30AM (#4494725)
        The "performance" that most people generally think of is maximum transfer speed. However, as IDE doesn't allow nice bus sharing or commands to be processed by different drives, SCSI basically allows you to do more things at a time. Also, the very low CPU usage helps out too. I used to have a Yamaha SCSI drive, and I would expect the IDE drive to be nearly identical in "performance" and reliability. However, I also used to burn CDs, surf the Web, copy large files, etc., at the same time. Never burnt a coaster. This was on a P2-300 BTW.
        • Don't even try to tell them something man, over that IDE-Scsi thing... They won't understand what SCSI is meant for, nor SCSI people will suggest poor people using $300 Adaptec SCSI cards running only generic apps.

          Every system has its place but, for reliability, I'd of course prefer SCSI bus.

          You wouldn't like to waste a DVD-R just because your Winmodem dials somewhere and it blocks CPU eh?
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • I thought this was a marketing gimmick until I forgot to enable DMA on my new 48x burner.

              Needless to say, hundreds of buffer-empty conditions and the CD still wasn't a coaster.

              I'm a former SCSI afficionado - I now have a pure IDE system. (I eventually will plug in my 6-disc SCSI changer that I got at a garage sale for $10, but other than that my system is now SCSI free.)

              SCSI cabling is far more sensitive to problems/glitches than IDE, so often I would spend an hour trying to get my SCSI chain working after moving the system. Eventually something was going wrong in the SCSI bus that was randomly corrupting data that I couldn't track down. I bought an 80 gig Maxtor (Apparently they've shaped up a LOT in the past few years from all I've heard) and have only once looked back. (For some reason IDE drives suck for ripping CD audio.)

    • Re:SCSI (Score:3, Informative)

      by sirinek ( 41507 )
      I used to feel the same way as you with regards to IDE burners. I had a Hi-Val 4x IDE CDR and it was the biggest steaming pile of crap I ever had the misfortune of using. I got sick of it and bought a new (at the time) Sony 8x SCSI burner, and an old Adaptec 2940 card a friend had. It provided me very good service over the last couple years.

      Then, recently my CDROM decided to flake out on me. This was my 4rd CDROM (not burner) to die on me in the last 5 years. I will never ever buy one of those cheap crap (HiVal, Asus, Mitsumi etc etc) CDROMs or burners again. I decided enough was enough, so I replaced my dead cdrom with a 40/12/48 burner from Sony (IDE) for like $90 at compusa (I know i could get it cheaper but i wanted it NOW) and its been flawless for me under Linux and Windows.

      So I took out my 8x burner and I use the newer Sony for my CD reading and writing instead of having seperate readers and burners. I'll probably sell the scsi 8x and scsi card on ebay, they've been good to me. :)

      siri

    • Re:SCSI (Score:3, Informative)

      by QuiK_ChaoS ( 190208 )
      I agree with you. I have had a SCSI Plextor 8x4x20 that has lasted for almost 4 years. Never burnt a coaster to my knowledge. I too would like to see this in SCSI.

      For one reason, companies are the primary users of SCSI and thier expensive counter-parts. They can afford it! This drive in SCSI would definately have a use here for my backing up servers. (And I could listen to CD's with the 1/8" Jack and Volume control when I am not using it for backups!(See previous post))
    • You asked: "Are there any benefits to IDE burners ... over the SCSI counterparts?". The real question is "Are there any benefits to SCSI burners over the IDE counterparts?".

      The answer is "no". SCSI may be slightly faster, but not enough to be worth the price difference. My cd-r ( a Philips) burned each iso of red hat 8 in about 3 minutes. A SCSI burner may have gotten that down to 2:45. But if that 15 seconds per cd is really that important, because you're burning so many of them, then you need a cd-duplicator, not a burner. IDE speed is so high that you spend more time setting up the burn then you actually spend burning it.

      The only place SCSI is marginally useful is in RAID systems on your server, and even there it's only cost effective if you are running a system with thousands of users.

      • Re:Why SCSI? (Score:5, Informative)

        by runderwo ( 609077 ) <runderwoNO@SPAMmail.win.org> on Monday October 21, 2002 @10:04AM (#4494956)
        The only place SCSI is marginally useful is in RAID systems on your server, and even there it's only cost effective if you are running a system with thousands of users.
        A pretty bold claim to make.
        • SCSI is designed for efficiency, and produces less CPU load than IDE for the majority of tasks.
        • SCSI can disconnect busy devices from the channel, not locking it out from use by other devices, and thus not practically requiring a whole bus for every device you use.
        • SCSI command structure is well-documented, consistent, simple to program, and generic enough to support almost any device that is capable of transfering data.
        • SCSI has had built-in data integrity features for years, which were only recently introduced with Ultra ATA.
        • Many SCSI devices are hotswappable in the case of a failure.
        • The SCSI hostadapter/target relationship is a more flexible relationship than the IDE interface/device relationship, and can be more useful where unique solutions are required (such as accessing a device from two machines simultaneously).
        • SCSI equipment tends to be more expensive, but the difference is that it is not throwaway, consumer-quality equipment. Many people appreciate having this choice.

        No, you're not magically going to burn a sincle CD faster with a SCSI drive. But using speed as the only rationale is not looking at the whole picture. It's sort of like saying that the dual 600MHz Origin server is less worthwhile than my PC, because my PC crunches numbers faster and is cheaper.

        If the extra $100 I pay for a SCSI drive means that I will enjoy never having to replace the drive; never having to deal with a software compatibility hassle; never having to deal with an interoperability hassle with another device in my loaded system; and never having less than the best performance that I expect from the equipment, then that's an extra fee that I will be happy to pay and not look back.

        The choice is up to the individual, but all these people bemoaning those who have preferred, and still prefer, SCSI drives is sort of ridiculous. Isn't a diverse marketplace supposed to be a good thing?

        • Each and every one of your bulleted points either largly irrelevent for desktops or based on obsolete arguments against IDE, such as CPU ussage. With UDMA CPU ussage for IDE has been cut down to the point where it doesn't noticably slow down the system. Also IDE drives are NOT "throwaway" quality. IDE drive manufacturers have to maintain very low failure rates because of the razor thin margins they live on (as low as $1 a drive). Having to replace a failed drive eats the profits from several dozen new HD sales, obviously they can't afford that.

          As for price, last I checked the price per GB of SCSI drives was 4-5x that of IDE. That's not including the cost of a SCSI controller. No power user who isn't either sunning a server or a flaming elitist (hint) would use SCSI on the desktop.

          One last thing, what is this "never having to deal with a software compatibility hassle; never having to deal with an interoperability hassle with another device in my loaded system; and never having less than the best performance that I expect from the equipment"? I've never had any such hassles with IDE.
          • One last thing, what is this "never having to deal with a software compatibility hassle; never having to deal with an interoperability hassle with another device in my loaded system; and never having less than the best performance that I expect from the equipment"? I've never had any such hassles with IDE.

            You are very lucky then ... IDE is a mess to support, especially at the OS level. I can imagine MS would be pretty happy if IDE disappeared too, but its so cheap (because of mass production and lower production standards and lower margins) that its hard to marginalize.

            If you don't believe the IDE spec is a mess, talk to anyone on the working committee.

        • SCSI only uses 1 IRQ for all the devices connected to the chain (on non APCI setups) Those stinkin IDE drives use 1 IRQ per device, which sucks if you're trying to make a semi decent system with old hardware.
    • Yeah, I know, it's flamebait, but I feel it's true. SCSI had a time and place where it looked superior. But now, CPU usage for hdds is negligible, 150mbit/s transfer rates *pr* disk with SATA is on par with SCSI and ATA RAID is everywhere.

      In fact I'm surprised why there are no ATA 10k+ RPM drives today. Personally I think there's a marked collusion, as in "if one starts making it we'll all have to start making it and that would really kill the profitable SCSI marked by bringing prices down to ATAish levels, and that would be bad for all of us."

      I even see SATA proclaimed to be to the harddisks what the switch is over the hub. Individual bandwidth instead of shared bandwidth.

      If there is a quality and reliability difference, it has nothing to do with SCSI vs. IDE, but only with the quality expectations and price premium of SCSI.

      Kjella

      • Re:SCSI is dying... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by alsta ( 9424 )
        "I even see SATA proclaimed to be to the harddisks what the switch is over the hub."

        I would say that the analogy is more likely (Switch == SCSI) && (ATA == Hub).

        And why are you surprised that there are no 10k+ RPM disks for ATA? Because of two things;

        1) With IDE, rotational latency isn't really that big of a deal because the congestion is at the bus level. IDE disks don't have any intelligence built in to speak of, which is why they're cheaper than SCSI. So all the rotational speed in the world won't do any difference.

        2) Why spend money developing faster IDE disks when it's far too difficult to retain compatibility and keeping production costs low..? Because it isn't worth it. It's money in the wishing well.

        " Yeah, I know, it's flamebait, but I feel it's true. SCSI had a time and place where it looked superior. But now, CPU usage for hdds is negligible, 150mbit/s transfer rates *pr* disk with SATA is on par with SCSI and ATA RAID is everywhere."

        Yes, it is flamebait. It is also a fallacy. 150mbit/s is something that SCSI did 10 years ago. Today it does 20 times that! Or were you suggesting 150MB/s? In which case that is also untrue. You do not get that kind of transfer speed out of an IDE bus. That is a theoretical maximum. Let alone "*pr*[sic]" disk. SATA being on par with SCSI is something that remains to be seen, so you can't make that claim either. Please show me the benchmark which has SATA beat Ultra320 SCSI, or even Ultra160 SCSI. If you can't produce that, please refrain from making comments like that.

        CPU usage is also not negligible. If you have to compensate with 2GHz+ CPUs to use IDE, the point is moot. Why pay $1,000 for a computer so that you can use IDE, when you can pay ten times less that to get your WORKING computer to use faster disks?
        • Does one drive pr. channel mean anything to you? If I put four Serial ATA drives in a box and raid 0 them, I got a theoretical 4x150 = 600MB/s transfer rate. Yes I know it's *theoretical* but it sure scales better than SCSI. 1 SCSI drive, four SCSI drives, ten SCSI drive = still sharing the same bandwidth. Which is why SCSI is dying (not dead) and SerialATA coming (but not quite here, unfortunately).

          Oh, and you better read up on that part about ATA having no intelligence, you'd better read up on SerialATA. Re-ordering, no polling, fixed DMA engine problems, pretty much all it needs for being alone on the channel. No need for all that fancy bus locking/ordering features SCSI has.

          Kjella
        • You might want to check out the preview benchmarks at lostcircuits. They wonder if the 150MB/s burst rate overfilled the 133MB/s PCI bus, making that the bottleneck for burst speed...

          Kjella
        • With IDE, rotational latency isn't really that big of a deal because the congestion is at the bus level. IDE disks don't have any intelligence built in to speak of ...


          As another SCSI supporter, I have to point out that IDE stands for 'integrated drive electronics' -- moving the controller intelligence onto the drive and off the controller. SCSI traditionally puts most of the intelligence on the controller, not the drive. These comparisons aren't as true as they used to be; IDE puts a lot of workload on the OS compared to SCSI though.



          Why spend money developing faster IDE disks when it's far too difficult to retain compatibility and keeping production costs low..? Because it isn't worth it. It's money in the wishing well.


          If you want an entertaining read, look up some of the Linux kernel development logs w.r.t. IDE development. It seems actually supporting the various IDE firmware versions is nearly impossible without proprietary information for each drive + controller.

          You do not get that kind of transfer speed out of an IDE bus.

          Keep in mind that some drive manufacturers (like IBM) are putting 8MB or more cache right on their drives so that the user sees the speed of offloading the data from the system RAM to the drive RAM (or vice-versa) and not the actual time to write / read the disk. This doesn't help in uncacheable situations, and increases the electronics on the drive (making for a less K.I.S.S.'d solution), but does make those speeds 'possible'



          CPU usage is also not negligible.


          I'd be interested in seeing a Crusoe-based machine with all SCSI & IEEE1394 components to save CPU cycles. I bet the effective speed would be even closer to P-IV's at that point. Heck, I think a Crusoe-based SCSI controller would be a neat deal too.



          Moving on to another poster, however ...


          I got a theoretical 4x150 = 600MB/s transfer rate. Yes I know it's *theoretical* but it sure scales better than SCSI.


          Being theoretical makes your last statement silly; I want 'real' performance. That, I get with 1500RPM SCSI drives on an ICP-Vortex Ultra-160 RAID controller (which comes with up to 3 SCSI channels). Ultra-320 is out now too, at 320MB/sec, and the way SCSI communicates with its drives makes sharing that bandwidth per cable more efficient than IDE's master-slave system.



    • Re:SCSI (Score:3, Informative)

      by radish ( 98371 )

      My Plextor IDE's been working fine for 18 months. Don't see any reason why I should spend the extra cash on SCSI - cpu load is negligable, I have no problems with multitasking & burning.

      Personally, I can think of very few situations where it's worth shelling out the extra cash for SCSI these days.
    • Do you have $5000? Pioneer does make an external SCSI model that does the same things (at least an external SCSI version of the DVR-A04 exists).
    • "I realise that the dude who's getting a Dell has IDE..."


      Not quite. I just bought a Dell server (2500 series) and had to return it because of a lack of a standard IDE controller. Dell had this little proprietary cable that ran the CD and floppy, and there were no other connectors on the MB. I could have bought an IDE controller for about $40, but dammit, when I buy a $2000 server and it doesn't come with an IDE controller, I want my money back.

      We switched to IBM for now. They do have IDE controllers on-board.

    • Are there any benefits to IDE burners (technically for the IDE interface, not just because they're newer and faster) over the SCSI counterparts?

      Wow... what a leading question.

      Of course not - it's a given that the IDE interface is technically inferior to SCSI. That's not debatable. Ok, some people have said "yeah, it doesn't use an ID on my SCSI chain", but that's a pretty far stretch. I suppose you could point out that an IDE drive won't ever slow the SCSI bus down, which can be detrimental, but a separate bus/card fixes that just as easily.

      The real question is: "Are there any benefits to SCSI burners over the IDE counterparts?"

      And the answer to that is "no".

      IDE burners don't make coasters anymore. The various write controller techs prevent buffer underflows in all but the most contrived situations. Drive failure rate is low as well - come on folks, you really think they're using different components for the SCSI and IDE units? All it is is a different controller board. Everything else is the same. If you want Plextor, buy them - they make IDE drives as well.

      Of course, the IDE drives are roughly 1/4 - 1/2 the price of the SCSI drives (Plextors and Yamaha are an exception, with the SCSI drives only $20-50 more usually, but that's because their IDE drives are 2-3x the cost of everyone else already). They're also faster, and the newest techs are available on IDE first now (which didn't used to be the case).

      If you have a server that needs burning capability, go ahead and look into a SCSI drive. Being able to disable IDE entirely means you have to deal with fewer buses in the same box, and simplicity is king. But otherwise you're just paying out the nose for SCSI for no good reason. Except maybe bragging about your all SCSI system to your friends who are too clueless to know how much money you wasted.

    • Re:SCSI (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Zeio ( 325157 )
      Plextor has a new SCSI version in the works. Unfortunately quality and efficiency is secondary to volume. I personally have a Plextor 12X SCSI, and it has never burned a coaster and this was before Just Right and Burn Proof. Jörg Schilling has a fetish for Plextor as well (he writes cdrecord).

      Real hardware zealots appreciate SCSI stuff in a machine. Steven peddles "Dell Dude's approved Hi Val Lite On Combo Re-Writer" but the reality of the situation is grim.

      My first epiphany with regards to SCSI being superior came form this "old POS" 486 server I found lying around somewhere. But it was a SCSI system. Not that I condone dumpster diving, but when these new fangled Packard Bell pieces of crap with their feeble Pentium 90 with FDIV [PENTIUM - Produces Erroneous Numbers Through Incorrect Understanding of Math] error and cheesy IDE hard disks, looking around for real alternatives isn't a bad idea.. Needless to say the SCSI 486 box lived far beyond its intended day of deprecation.

      What IDE comes down to is its Intel backed. Not that Intel is a bad thing for the industry in terms of volume, they bring cheap and fast to the masses, nor are they bad to keep things competitive. But they sell CPUs and endorse IDE/EIDE/ATA/ATAPI and USB/1/2. That means SCSI and Firewire is better.

      SCSI - first to implement SMART. This stuff has worked for me first hand. SCSI uses sector sparing which remaps defects to spare sectors, not marks them as "bad." ATAPI is a subset of the total commands available to the SCSI, and SCSI being the superset it has more commands available to it to perform various extra things. IDE drives have primitive understanding of tagged commands, if at all. If you have to write, Say, ABCD to the disk - but the placement on the physical platter was ACDB. SCSI would write them out as ACBD, to say the disk from having to do extra work. IDE class would start at A, then pass up the C locations to write the B, then rewind to the C location, then forward to the D location. Grossly inefficient. SCSI drives have superior warranties. SCSI drive vendors will advance replace hard drives, not requiring you to rip out your drive and send it off as IDE vendors do. SCSI vendors make money on SCSI drives - this is a good thing because that means they actually support he product. SCSI implementations on UNIX are clean, and most IDE "SCSI-like" devices are emulated as SCSI for a reason. If you think SCSI is a myth, try this one on. Novell 4 provided an IDE driver so that people could use IDE CD-ROM. They specifically asked that IDE drives not be used to serve Novell shares, the devices generally could not handle the extremely aggressive (and pleasantly fast and recoverable) Novell file system. Low and behold, my cheesy boss thought to put an IDE disk in there. It seized up a year later. Literally. The drive wouldn't even spin up. Luckily I noticed this condition and was able to copy the info off (we had backups but hey, up to the minute is better). After power off and power on, drive, dead. This drive was not one of those drives prone to failure, like the 75GXP or a 6GB WD. It died a horrible death due to inferior capability.

      I like my Adaptec and LSI/Symbios high end SCSI cards. I like low CPU usage. I like a proactive approach to error detection and correction - sector sparing and SMART. I like calling and getting support.

      Notable - the price for 80 pin SCA equipment is in expensive. If you need cheap SCSI disks this is the way to go, there seems to be overstock of said drives and places like Hypermicro [hypermicro.com] will give you a converter from 80 to 68 pin (LVD safe) for free with 80 pin purchase.

      Also, just recently, be cognizant of the fact that FireWire creamed USB 2.0 despite the higher bandwidth maximums. [xbitlabs.com] Intel sell CPUs. Eating more and more CPU power created a need for bigger better faster more.

      Now a drawback with SCSI is the idiotic cabling, high cost. The answer to idiotic cabling was SCA a SAF-TE enclosure. Hot swappable and all. Clearly with SCSI-over-IP coming, and 10GE with SCSI-over-IP being a planned alternative to FC, there is something alluring about SCSI to keep it going on in the 10 GE era.

      I would like to see a firewire-like connector adaptation of SCSI at some point. I like SCSI. The driver support is universal for AIC78xx and NCR/Symbios/LSI 53C8xx/53C7xx. The performance is superior and handles very busy multi user stuff far more gracefully. Better warranties. Better data reliability. Interestingly cheap backchannel for 80 pin SCA.

      For DVD-ROMS, I would like to see SCSI and firewire come out first, the crud adaptations to USB and ATAPI come out later.

      I am repulsed by ATAPI add in cards, btw. I don't like Promise too much, I don't like HPT at all. I think 3Ware is a nice idea but it's a hack and it makes not sense to do anything but mirror an IDE to me.

      Do I have a 120 MB 8MB buffer hard drive? Yes. Do I wish it was a SCSI yes. Would I buy another CDR burner when I have a Plextor SCSI 12X? No, not until another SCSI one comes out. I already have the SCSI subsystem in place so the incremental cost in getting a SCSI drive is worth it.

      So in summation, I am supporting "alsta's argument and desire for SCSI versions of hardware. I also makes it easy to stuff new things into SCSI only platforms like some Sun Ultra workstations. And interestingly enough, lots of former Mac zealots and I agree, Apple jumped the shark hard when they bailed on SCSI. For anti SCSI zealots I will condone only Firewire. And then maybe USB for junk like keyboards and mice. I wish that machines were all build with the SCA or FC backplane that the Sun workstations get. Its elegant, reliable, easy to service, hot swappable and guess what, if you care about what's on your hard drive no price seems to high to guarantee better data availability.

      High-Quality! Inexpensive! Superior-Performance! - pick any two.
      • I've read a hundred reasons at least to use IDE-RAID with Linux instead of SCSI drives (mostly due to price). Everyone seems to think that IDE drives are just as reliable as SCSI drives. These people obviously don't run high-demand servers. I've gone through at least a dozen IDE drives this year that have seized up and died (from Maxtor, IBM and Fujitsu). I've had no SCSI drives die. I have SCSI drives in sites running constantly; some doing database, faxing and E-mail work off one set of drives -- they never go down, and the CPU use is minimal because of the SCSI controller's on-board chips.

        I've always tried to source SCSI CD-ROMs and CD Burners because they end up being more reliable by being less CPU dependant; this is a good thing, and I hope Plextor keeps making them.
    • I would be more impressed with IEEE1394 support for burners, especially right on DVR boxen, especially if proposed updates happen (bringing it up to 800M, 1600M and 3200M/s.)

  • Not interested (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21, 2002 @09:11AM (#4494625)
    DVDs are too little too late. They've been "on hold" for too long to be the next-gen data-storage solution. If DVDs are supposed to stay around for a few years, how are 4.7 GB supposed to be enough? Harddisks are already too big to be backupped to DVD and it's only getting worse. Compare the 1000-fold increase in storage capacity of harddisks over the last decade with the meager 7-fold increase from CD to DVD. I think that DVD is a very short-lived phenomenon.
    • I agree 100 per cent. How many more years before they can make a chip which could hold a movie and have no moving parts and be cheap enough. Better I believe that it will not be long before video on demand will allow one copy of a movie to be viewed by millions of people on demand. All storage should be on a central server thus relieving everyone of the problems of maitaining storage.
  • How much? I have yet to buy a DVD burner because I can't justify the cost..(OK..my wife won't let me...but that's neither here not there:))
    Is this a sun-$200 unit, or do I have to wait years for that to occur?

  • This review was post by Hemos since (Score:3, Funny)

    by News for nerds ( 448130 ) on Monday October 21, 2002 @09:14AM (#4494647) Homepage
    there are so many statements not available in th US - look the way those guys at dvdwriters.co.uk write about duping safedisk-protected CD with Pioneer DVR-A05 with actual game titles, and blatantly testing DVD-ripping on it.
    Hemos looks this further, laughing out loud you slashdot people laughing him about moronic posting of some review. At least he wants us to believe that until now.
  • Hi
    For a long time I misconsidered buying a DVD burner as there were many different formats, technologies and also media prices issues involved.

    Now, if I burn a DVD on this stuff, will it still be readable on another PC's lambda DVD player ?

    Is there something specific to know about this ?

    What about region-locking ?
    Can I easily duplicate my own DVD (and DeCSS these on the fly, BTW caus' I want my backups not to suffer from such idiot protection scheme) ?

    Thanks

  • Reasonable CDR speed. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mikedaisey ( 413058 ) on Monday October 21, 2002 @09:25AM (#4494699) Homepage
    I'm just thrilled that it writes CDRs at 16x...I'm using an 8x notebook burner now, so I was resolved not to take a hit in speed when I get an external DVD writer. At 16x I think a lot of people can finally get one drive for all their burning needs, rather than a seperate CDRW and DVD-R.

    There will be exceptions, if you need (or think you need) superfast burning. but this is welcome news.
    • I also agree w/ that. I have a 16x4x32 Yamaha in my home system. Had for over a year now, and it is plenty fast. This is now a replacement consideration.

      Would aslo replace my 8x Creative DVD-ROM.

  • Putting this together with last weeks "Philip's SFFO 3cm 4Gig Optical Discs" story and now you have a choice of watching 5 2 hour movies or streaming 1080i HDTV over your cell phone. Who's going to have time to make phone calls?

  • Consumer DVD-R is here, but not ready for 4x (Score:5, Informative)

    by bouis ( 198138 ) on Monday October 21, 2002 @09:37AM (#4494771)
    Current Pioneer DVD-R drives keep a list of identification strings for all "2x certified" media in the firmware. For a new media manufacturer to be added to this firmware list, they must pay Pioneer for 2x certification. Few generic manufacturers are willing to do this.

    Thus, there is no real standard for "generic" 2x discs; those that claim to be are either re-labeled (and expensive) or (speculation) have "fake" identifiers -- the quality and compatability varies greatly, but suffice to say, most are quite poor.

    Though, I did say that consumer DVD-R is here: Princo ($0.66 [qtccdr.com]) and Ritek ($1.00 [rima.com]) both make fine (and cheap) 1x discs which can be burned at 2x using a "hacked [doom9.org]" firmware. My experience [doom9.org] suggests that Princo 1x media are good for 2x, although set-top compatability seems to suffer. Many have reported good luck with Riteks, although I've had poor luck with discs over 4.00 GB (full capacity is 4.38 GB).

  • is only to serve as a warning to others.

    Don't get sucked in by a low priced HP DVD i100 burner. I picked one up to create ghost images for our SE's demo laptops. With the latest bios, drivers, etc - I've found two DVD-ROM's that will actually read a burned CD. Unfortunately, that does not include any of the IBM think pads, Dell latitudes, or any other Dell workstation in our shop.

    For $99, HP will 'update' the drive to make it work with DVD-R's. That is another stinky issue since they advertised it worked with the -R media, but I'm OK with DVD-RW media if it actually was readable by anything I picked it up for. The box said it ran under Win2K server - it does, but only as a DVD-ROM. The burning software only 'works' with Win2K workstation and below. Customer Service was less than helpful.

    Rather than spend the $99 and hope - We picked up a Pioneer unit (not the one in this review, but don't remember the number) and have had no problems. Fool me once...
    • Be careful with the media type names. Your HP DVD i100 does neither write DVD-R nor DVD-RW. Instead, it writes DVD+RW (and was advertised as being DVD+R capable, but it isn't, so if you "update" it, you'll get a new drive). Compatibility with normal DVD drives isn't that good with DVD+RW media, but neither it is with DVD-RW media - however I'd expect newer DVD drives to be able to read them both (DVD+R compatibility should be better, just as DVD-R compatibility with DVD drives is better than DVD-RW).
      mczak

  • How about it? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The accounts I've heard from the elders about Betamax are something I don't want to have to experience first hand. This drive appears to solve the problem by reading most of the formats, and writing most of them too. I desperately need a new CD-ROM, and would like a way of recording as well, but my trepidation at being locked into early technology is large.

    This article mentioned that even some versions of the PS2 had differences. I despise this sort of thing. I have a feeling that with the right sort of hardware, most of these problems could be fixed in firmware. Some company needs to put out a drive that has the hardware to do everything, release the specs, and watch as the firmware to read/write all standards roll in.

    As an aside, how and CD-R[W] and DVD[+/-]R[W/AM/OM] accomplished in Linux? Would it be by creating a file of the proper size, hooking a loopback device up to it, and treating it as the proper file system, then writing that to the disk? What if I don't have a partition on my disk big enough to handle the temp file?
  • How close are we to seeing a definitive end to the media standards questions between -R/RW and +R/RW?

    This has been debated between friends of mine and we can't get a clear signal as to what might win out. With many drive prices still over $300 its kind of tough to commit to a standard that won't benefit from continuously declining media prices and market acceptance, particularly when it comes to digital media (set-top DVD).

  • Just got the Sony... (Score:4, Informative)

    by NetJunkie ( 56134 ) <jason.nash@CHICAGOgmail.com minus city> on Monday October 21, 2002 @10:50AM (#4495369)
    I just got the Sony DRU500A yesterday. For those looking for one CompUSA actually had them in stock when NO ONE else did. Dell screwed me on my order for one pushing it back until Nov. 29th...so I gave in and went to Comp and got it for $349.

    It's a great drive. Does DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, and CD-R/RW. No more worrying about DVD standards. So far I've only got to test it at 1x since that's the media I have, but it worked just fine.

    My only complaint is the the front of the tray is Sony silver, while the rest of the drive is white. Might look OK in an aluminum case, though.

  • Mount Rainer (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Not cool. The drive doesn't support Mt. Rainer. It may cost a lot of usuable space on the disk, but the Mt. Rainer extensions have been quite convenient for me on cd drives. Hopefully I'll be able to get a DVD writer which implements them soon...
  • CONCLUSION

    Pros

    Supports writing 99min CDs
    4 Speed DVD-R Support
    2 Speed DVD-RW Support
    Supports DAO-RAW mode
    Higher DVD read speeds for DVD-ROM & HS media
    Lower access times
    Can read and write 96 bytes sub-channels
    Fast & perfect audio ripping
    Can produce X-Box & Playstation compatible disks
    Can read & write CD-Text
    DVD "-" offers better compatibility with older players
    Low cost of ownership

    Cons

    Has problems reading 99min CDRs (can write them OK)
    CD-RW write support is only 8x speed
    Slow x2 speed CSS ripping (1.8x)
    Still No C2 error read mode
    Can not write Safedisk 2.51+ (incorrect EFM encoder)
    Slow reading Safedisk CDs
    Very poor CD-R read performance
    Poor quality media
    No defect management for DVD-RWs

    Pioneer has finally delivered on what we and most others wanted most in a DVD writer and that was an increase in DVD recording speeds. There is no disputing that the speed at which new DVD writers record to DVD-Rs at is light years ahead of the 1st generation drives - the A05 only needs 15mins to writes a whole 4.7GB of data.

    We were slightly disappointed with the A05's CD writing ability, mainly its CD-R maximum writing speed of 16 X and its relatively slow re-write speed. It's interesting to note that the preliminary product specifications show that Pioneer had faster CD recordable features and higher DVD-ROM read speeds in mind but decided against implementing them.

    We were pleased that Pioneer added support for writing in DAO-RAW mode - a useful feature used by Clone-CD for backing up games (in countries that permit it). This addition isn't all that it appears to be as its performance was so bad that it's pretty ineffective - it failed to backup any of our games and took long time to read them!

    The A04 was particularly good at reading and writing 99min CD-Rs and was one of the best performers for that specific test - the DVR A05 does not follow its lead unfortunately. It can write to 99mins fine but when it came to reading what it had written it had severe problems (this was verified with disks that the A04 had produced).

    One of the major improvements that we noticed with this drive was its random access times for DVDs - they are so much faster than the A04 and you wont be disappointed if you'r used to handling many small files.

    The 4X DVD recording is an incredibly nice feature to have but unfortunately we didn't get to test it as 4 speed DVD-R and 2 speed DVD-RW disks are not out here in the UK and this is a PRE-RELEASE unit we have reviewed, but we hope to re-test the DVR-A05 with a full retail version if/when the opportunity arises.

    The drive had major problems when reading CDs, whether it was a CD-ROM or CD-R it was incredibly fussy and slow. The access times for CDs was good but the transfer rate was slow for everyday use. This is an area where even the older A04 is better at.

    With a price tag of £249.00 we feel that Pioneer may have been beaten at its own game by the likes of Sony, Philips, Panasonic and Sanyo who are all due to release 4 speed DVD writers (Sony have already released the DRU-500A in America) with faster recording speeds and more features. The A05 has its work cut out and our advice is wait and see what the competition offers.

  • EUR? (Score:1)

    by dazdaz ( 77833 )
    Looks a good drive, any idea on the price?
  • Hmmm, this site is an obvious proponent of the DVD+ formats, since they make a point of calling the DVD- formats "DVD minus", rather than the correct "DVD dash".

    Also, who cares about the speed of CD-R/RW burns on a DVD burner? If my major interest were burning CD-R/RW, I wouldn't be buying a DVD burner.

    Frankly, everyone I know who has a DVD burner also has a CD burner.

  • I'VE GOT A PRICE... Sorta (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mesach ( 191869 ) on Monday October 21, 2002 @07:23PM (#4500123)
    I work for Pioneer, and when I saw this I was like, WE DONT EVEN HAVE IT!? HOW DID THEY REVIEW IT!

    But I Found out that its due in here next week, I guess we (Japan Corp) sent it out to some manufacturers first, and they somehow got ahold of one.

    As far as pricing goes, I have been told that dealer pricing is supposed to be the same as the A04, so whether or not the dealers will mark it up more or not is up to them, take it as you will. Im gonna get mine next week.

    BTW 4x Burning Doesnt even matter when you don't have 4x media,

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