Pioneer DVR-110D DVD Burner Review

The specifications of this drive tell us that it should write DVD±R at 16x and DVD+RW/-RW at 8x/6x. In this part, we will measure the write time for various types of DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW discs. We will also focus on write quality and media compatibility.

DVD-Writing performance:

In this test we will measure the time for writing to DVD±R discs. We used Nero Burning Rom to burn an ISO compilation containing 4483Mb of data. We used the Disc-At-Once write method.

DVD+R

DVD-R

Look below for the results.

The results are above average on DVD+R and among the fastest drives on DVD-R, when compared to other drives. Let us see how the writing quality is.

Write quality:

You should first notice that this is not a scientific and professional way to test the discs. But according to our testing done in recent months, we would conclude that there is a clear link between the quality reported when scanning the disc and the playability of the disc in different devices. Also notice that different drives report different amounts of errors. K-Probe was designed to work with Lite-On DVD-Writers, so we recommend using a DVD-Writer from Lite-On. In this test we use a Lite-On SOHW-1653S DVD-Writer, as already said; remember that scans done with a Lite-On DVD-ROM or Lite-On combo drive can’t be compared with the results obtained with a Lite-On DVD-Writer. Also remember that different PI/PO ECC sum settings along with different reading speeds in K-Probe will affect the result, we use these settings;  PI (Parity Inner) set to summarize 8 ECC blocks, PIF (Parity Inner Failures) set to summarize 1 ECC block, reading speed: 4X CLV (Constant Linear Velocity). Setting the PI sum to 8 and the PIF sum to 1 will give a result that we may compare to the standards for DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW.

But what is a good scan? That is a discussion that we don’t think will end soon, as different drives report different amount of errors, some players are more picky about media than others, and so on. But as a comparison we present you with a scan from two pressed DVD discs:

This scan shows the results from a pressed DVD-Video disc (GoldenEye).

This scan shows the result from a pressed DVD-Video disk (The Green Mile). Notice the error jump when shifting to the second layer (the error level actually drops from the end of the first layer to the beginning of the second layer).

If you read below, you will see that both the pressed DVD-discs are well within the standards.

Download the ECMA 267 Standard for DVD-ROM, the ECMA 337 Standard for DVD+R/RW and the ECMA 338 Standard for DVD-R/RW at http://www.ecma-international.org if you want to look at the standards for yourself. Here is some data from the ECMA standards (same for DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW):

Random errors:

A row of an ECC Block that has at least 1 byte in error constitutes a PI error. In any 8
consecutive ECC Blocks the total number of PI errors before correction shall not exceed 280.

Here we see that a PI error is defined as a row in an ECC block having 1 byte or more containing errors and that the sum of PI errors in 8 ECC blocks after each other should not exceed 280 PI errors.

But what is a row and what is an ECC block? Again we refer to the ECMA standards. We do not copy and paste everything, but if you’re interested, look in the ECMA standards. A row is 182 bytes long where the last 10 bytes contain PI (Parity Inner) information. An ECC block is 208 rows long where the last 16 rows contain the PO (Parity Outer) information. This gives us a maximum possible PI error amount of 208 errors per block and for 8 blocks after each other this sum is of course 8 times higher, giving a maximum possible amount of 1664 PI-8 errors. In practical use, a disc with 1664 PI-8 errors is unreadable.

According to our tests the specified max PI-8 sum of 280 for good discs seems to be a good guideline, as some readers have problems reading discs when the PI-8 errors is over 300 and most players starts to have problems when the PI-8 error level reaches 600 or more.

But what are the PIF errors that K-Probe reports? They are Parity Inner Failures, meaning errors left after PI correction. Only the ECMA 337 standard describes the Parity Inner Failures. So how is a Parity Inner Failure defined? Here is what the ECMA 337 states:

‘If a row of an ECC Block as defined in 13.3 contains more than 5 erroneous bytes, the row is said to be ‘PI-uncorrectable“.”

In theory, an ECC block may in the worst case have 208 PIF since every ECC block is 208 rows long. But the ECMA 337 standard goes further and specifies the max amount of accepted PI Failures (uncorrectable errors) allowed on a good disc:

‘In any ECC Block the number of PI-uncorrectable rows should not exceed 4.”  

This means that when the PIF sum is set to 1, the maximum error value should not exceed 4. The theoretical maximum value for PIF is 208 errors.

But what makes a disc unreadable? A POF (Parity Outer Failure) error will make the disc unreadable, but K-Probe does not display the POF’s.

Notice that there are other aspects such as disc reflectivity, jitter, tracking errors and so on that also will affect the readability of a DVD disc ‘“ but for this we do not have measuring equipment available.

Also, another note is that we have scanned the discs at 4X CLV speed, by lowering the speed to 2X(DVD-R/RW)/2.4X(DVD+R/RW) or 1X the amount of reported errors may drop on some discs. We scanned at 4X CLV due to lower speeds taking too much time.

To see if there is a connection between the reported amount of errors and readability of the discs we also include the reading curve from a NEC ND-3540A DVD-Writer. The reason why we have changed the reader is that some companies disliked that we used a modified firmware to obtain 16x reading speed. So to please them, we are now using a drive that reads DVD+R/-R media at 16x as default. A small speed reduction near the end is still accepted on good discs, but serious reading problems or reading failures is a bad sign.

Easier explanation on how to read the test results.

Maybe this got too technical, and you are wondering what to look for in KProbe reports?

Use this as a guideline for good discs:

• PI (Parity Inner): No larger areas on the disc should exceed 280 PI-8 errors, do not worry too much about high single spikes that exceed 280.
• PIF (Parity Inner Failures): No larger areas on the disc should exceed 4 PIF-1 errors, do not worry too much about high single spikes that exceed 4.

And as always; lower is better

And look at the reading curve; if it looks clean with no dips it should be good, a small slowdown near the end is accepted.

DVD+R media compatibility and write quality:

In these tests we will be using a Lite-On SOHW-1653 drive with firmware CS09 along with K-Probe to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the NEC ND-3540A with firmware 1.01 along with CD-Speed for our read-back tests.

The K-Probe scan shows a single PIF spike of 6, but overall this is a good quality burn.

Datawrite 8x media with Prodisc media code. The result is excellent.

Datawrite 16x media with CMC media code. This 16x media was burned at 8x. The result is ok although not fantastic considering this media was burned at half its rated speed.

RiDisc 4x media with Ricoh media code.  The result is excellent. Recommended!

The PI errors are rising near the end of the disc, but everything is well within specification, and the transfer rate test is good.

A very good result but only burned at 12x.

Another excellent result with very low PIF errors on this disc.

It would appear the DVR-110D does not handle this media very well. Even though the burn speed was 12x, there are problems near the end of the disc where PIF errors are increasing and from our ‘transfer rate test” we can see there is a minor slow down at the end of the disc.

A very good result.

A very high quality burn from a good quality media. Highly recommended!

Another very good result and this 8x media was burned at 12x. Recommended!

The burn quality is good on this Traxdata media, but the burn speed was only 4x.

Another very good quality burn, this media is rated at 8x and was burned at 12x. Highly recommended!

A good result.

DVD+ReWritable media:

The result is good and as we can see a perfect reading curve.

The Traxdata media is not supported in the firmware, hence the very poor write quality. A bad result.

Another good result.

Once again we have a good result, a small blip in the read-back curve but nothing to worry about.

To sum it up: So far the Pioneer DVR-110D writes DVD+R and DVD+RW media with very good quality. Nearly all the test discs had a perfect read-back curve. Let’s find out if the drive can do as well with DVD-R/RW media.

On the next page you will find the DVD-R/RW writing results…