Pioneer BDR-101A Blu-ray Disc Writer

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.1.4 andInCD 5.1:

To test the DVD writing performance of Pioneer's new drive I used Verbatim 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R, 4x DVD-RW and 4x DVD+RW media. To get the writing times, a 4.38GB image was burned to our test discs using Nero.

When writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 8x, the BDR-101A uses Z-CLV, or Zone CLV. By looking at the screenshot above, you can see that Pioneer's new drive starts writing at 4x. When it reaches the 1.6GB mark, the writing speed increases to 8x and stays there until the very end of the session.

While the BDR-101A wasn't nearly as fast as some of the DVD writers we've looked at recently, it performed as expected with both DVD±R and DVD±RW media.

While Pioneer has a list of recommended media on their website, I wanted to see for myself how well the BDR-101A worked with some of the DVD+R and DVD-R media currently available.

So what about writing quality? Testing a drive's DVD writing quality isn't easy. Until now, there were very few options, unless you wanted to shell out thousands of dollars for a certified test machine. Thanks to KProbe, we can test a disc's PI (Parity Inner) and PIF (Parity Inner Fail) rates.For these tests I used a Lite-On SOHW-1673S and read the discs at 4x with the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8 and 1 respectively. For comparison, I also tested the discs on a BenQ DW1640. When combined with Nero CD Speed, the DW1640 is able to report PI Errors, PI Failures, Parity Outer Failures and even jitter levels. For this test, the discs are read at 8x with both the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8.

So what are "good" results supposed to look like? With KProbe, the PI errors should not exceed 280 and the number of PIF errors should stay below 4. When testing with CD Speed, the number of PI errors should stay below 280 as well. However, because it scans with an ECC sum of 8, a higher number of PIF errors is acceptable, as long as they do not exceed 32. Since POF errors are uncorrectable, we really don't want to see any of them at all.

I also put these discs through a "stress test" by reading them back at 16x with the DW1640. By reading these discs back at this speed, we can see if there are any readability issues caused by the number of errors or high levels of jitter.

Testing the BDR-101A's writing quality yielded some mixed results. In most cases, the PI/PIF rates stayed well within acceptable limits. However, the total number of PI Failures was much higher than we're used to seeing. This seemed to have a negative effect on our stress tests as the transfer rate graphs were not as smooth as I would have liked.

It was a similar situation with our DVD-R test media. Looking at the screenshots, you can see that while the error rates remained relatively low, the total number of PI Failures was quite high.

To test the BDR-101A packet writing performance I used InCD 5.1. Verbatim 4x DVD+RW and 4x DVD-RW media were used once again.

Testing the BDR-101A's packet writing performance did not go as smoothly as I would have liked. With DLA, the computer would lock up whenever we put a disc in the drive. The BDR-101A faired somewhat better with InCD 5.1. DVD-RW media worked flawlessly with the drive. Unfortunately, I was still not able to read or write to UDF formatted DVD+RW discs.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.1.4:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the BDR-101A, I used Verbatim 2.4x DVD+R DL, Memorex 2.4x DVD+R DL and Verbatim 4x DVD-R DL media. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

Needless to say, the BDR-101A wasn't one of the faster drives we've tested when writing to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was fairly good with Verbatim's 2.4x DVD+R DL and 4x DVD-R DL media. In both cases, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits and there were no readability problems. Unfortunately, the results weren't nearly as good with Memorex's 2.4x DVD+R DL media. The PI/PIF rates were very high at the layer change and there were a small number of PO Failures.