Pioneer DVR-115D DVD Burner Review

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Author

Dee
Senior Administrator and Reviewer
Article posted 25 Feb 08 21:20

Conclusion

Positive:

  • Excellent/very good CD-R/RW writing quality.
  • Excellent/very good DVD±R/RW writing quality.
  • Excellent/Very good DVD±R DL writing quality and performance.
  • Can burn selected DVD±R media faster than its rated speed.
  • Generally good reading performance and reliability.
  • Reads pressed DVD Video SL/DL and recordable media at 16x/12x.
  • Supports automatic BitSetting (BookType DVD-ROM) on DVD+DL.
  • No CSS riplock.
  • Can overburn CD-R media.
  • Can read and write mini DVD media.

Negative:

  • No BitSetting (BookType DVD-ROM) for DVD+R/RW media.
  • 40x maximum read and write speeds on CD-R media.

 

Conclusion:

 

Let us summarize the most important positive and negative points below:

The main positive points:

The Pioneer DVR-115DBK is a fast drive as far as writing DVD media is concerned.

The Pioneer DVR-115D wrote our tested DVD±R/RW/DL media with excellent/very good quality and upholds Pioneer’s tradition in this field.

The Pioneer DVR-115DBK was able to burn all our tested CD-R media with excellent/very good quality and media compatibility was also very good.

The Pioneer DVR-115DBK was also able to burn selected DVD±R/DL media at faster than its rated speed.

The Pioneer DVR-115DBK is a well built drive with a solid feel to it. Noise levels, even at 20x are not intrusive.

 

The main negative points:

There are not that many negative things to say about the Pioneer DVR-115DBK.

DVD+R/RW BitSetting would be nice and would enhance compatibility with some older standalone DVD players.

We would also like to see 48x reading and writing speeds being available for CD-R media.

DVD-RAM writing would also be nice.

To sum up, this is what we would say:

“The Pioneer DVR-115DBK is generally an excellent performer and does exactly what Pioneer claims. It’s another nice drive from Pioneer”

We were very impressed by the Pioneer DVR-115D writing quality and performance. We decided to award the drive our “CD Freaks Safe Buy Award”.

We found the best price available in the UK at the time of writing the review, to be at SVP UK. £17.39 Inc VAT.

You may comment on this review below or in this forum thread.

Thanks to:

 

SVP Communication – The United Kingdom for providing the media used in this review.

 

Medea International – United Kingdom for providing the media used in this review.

 

Verbatim – United Kingdom for providing the media used in this review.

 

Daxon Technology Inc – Taiwan for providing the BenQ media used in this article.

 

 

Pleomax for providing the media used in this review.

Ricoh Europe – For providing the media used in this review.

 

 

Plextor SA/NV (B) for providing the Plextor media used in this review.

 

 

 

9 Comments

r_saotome
Posts: 484
Posted on: 26 Feb 08 02:11
Nice review. Fortunately, thanks to MediaCodeSpeedEdit, we can BitSet DVD+R/W. ^_^
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 26 Feb 08 11:30
I don't think the bitsetting works on +RW. It does on +R but on the tests I made, a +RW disc was still bitset to +RW.
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 26 Feb 08 14:04
I got one. And when write, it's nice and quiet. But when insert a disc and it spins up. It's like a turbine. For that reason, i like my Pioneer DVR-110 better. It's quiet.
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 28 Feb 08 05:52
I got this one a week ago. I haven't tried for burning but while reading this burner makes extra-ordinary noise. Otherwise no complaints so far.
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 28 Feb 08 22:43
Sounds like a jet engine and seeks all the time when playing a DVD movie with PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra. :r
stealth123
Posts: 1
Posted on: 24 Aug 08 20:23
please help me i have installed the wrong firmware on my pioneer 115d i am wondering if u can take it back off please help
Dee
Posts: 11995
Posted on: 24 Aug 08 22:13
@stealth123. Please create a thread in our Pioneer forum and we'll see if we can help, as this is something we can't handle on this section of the site. http://club.cdfreaks.com/f87/
eand
Posts: 1
Posted on: 30 Oct 08 01:43
Since buying this item my computer will not pick it up, I dont have a driver for it and not sure if i need one, the player works ok but its just my computer which will not find it in the drives. Does anybody no what the problem can be, it did work at the start but not now.
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 12 Dec 08 05:48
I read this review, + others, plus many comments about it on different forums, and I wish someone had mentioned that it has something deficient with READ performance, so much so that it will not work with NeroDiscSpeed for checking the quality of burned discs. If I had known that I never would have bought it. I need a DVD burner that I can also check to see how the quality of the burns are with different media at different speeds. My Lite-on LH201Ah did that. I assumed that this drive would do that too. Now I am stuck with a drive that cannot do an essential function (for me). Live and learn, but I hope my posting this helps someone else make a more informed decision b4 buying one of these then regretting it like I do now.

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