Pioneer DVR-110D DVD Burner Review

DVD+R/-R Double Layer writing speed and compatibility:

The Pioneer DVR-110D 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 8x. Let us first take a look at the media’s we will use:

Let’s find the manufacturer and media information too, for this we will use CD-Speed:

This media is manufactured by Mitsubishi Kagaku Media. Thanks to Verbatim (D) for sending us this media.

The media is made by Ricoh Co. Ltd. (Made in Taiwan).  Thanks to Ricoh Europe (Germany) for sending us this media.

The Traxdata media is manufactured by RITEK (Thanks to Conrexx (NL) for sending us this media).

The media is made by CMC Magnetics. Thanks to E-Net (UK) for sending us this media.

Testing procedure:
We created an ISO Image from a pre-authored DVD-Video compliant file set, with a total on-disc size of 8146 MB. We then wrote this image file using Nero Burning ROM 6. Below are the results:

Ricoh Media

Nero reported a successful burn with the Ricoh media in 45 minutes 13 seconds.

Traxdata media

Nero once again reported a successful burn with the Traxdata media in 45 minutes 29 seconds

Verbatim media

Nero once again completed the burn successfully with the Verbatim media in 18 minutes and 4 seconds.

DataWrite Media

Another successful burn with the DataWrite media in 45 minutes 15 seconds

Let us take a look at the K-Probe results:

The Ricoh media has performed very well. A very good result.

PI levels are high with the Traxdata media but within specification, PIF levels are quite reasonable for this media, there is a cluster of PIF errors at the layer break, this was a little concerning.

The result is very good, considering this 2.4x certified media was written at 8x. There is a single PIF spike of 7 near the beginning of the disc, but this should not cause concern.

The DataWrite media has performed very well, and once again we have a very good result.

Now it’s time to take a look at some reading tests with various DVD-Writers.

First we will try to read the discs back in the Pioneer DVR-110D:

Ricoh Media

Traxdata media

Verbatim Media

DataWrite media

As we can see, the Pioneer DVR-110D had no problems reading the discs.

Now let us try NEC ND-3540A drive to read the Double Layer discs:

Ricoh Media

Traxdata media

Verbatim Media

DataWrite media

The NEC ND-3540A had no problems reading the discs apart from a slowdown at the layer break with the Verbatim and Traxdata media.

Let’s compare the Pioneer DVR-110D with some other DL capable drives.

*1 Verbatim DVD+R DL
*2 Traxdata DVD+R DL
*3 Ricoh DVD+R DL
*4 DataWrite DVD+R DL

DVD-R DL

As mentioned in the beginning of this page, the Pioneer DVR-110D supports the DVD-R DL standard at 8x. Let us first take a look at the media we will use:

Let’s find the manufacturer and media information too, for this we will use CD-Speed 4.04:

This media is manufactured by Mitsubishi Kagaku Media. Thanks to SVP (UK) for sending us this media.

Again, we used Nero Burning Rom 6 to write the DVD Image:

The Pioneer used 18 minutes and 12 seconds to write the Verbatim DVD-R DL 4x media at 8x.

To check the disc quality we used the NEC ND-3540A along with CD-Speed. The result is for information purposes only and cannot be compared to the Lite-On scans.

We will now check the read-back curves on three different drives.

Excellent read-back curves. Despite the poor CD-Speed disc quality scan. We would have to conclude the disc is ok since it read back in our three drives with excellent results.

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 DVD Standalone devices played the Pioneer DVR-110D burned DVD+R DL media. But only one DVD Standalone device would play the Pioneer DVR-110D burned DVD-R DL media without any problems.

Summary: Very good quality on DVD+R DL/-R DL and DVD standalone compatibility results, for the DVD+R DL media.

Before we round off this review, let us run the drive through some advanced tests at next page…