Pioneer DVR-108D - Crowning a new Champion

36 Comments

View All Comments

• DarthRanger - Saturday, September 4, 2004 - link

  Hi Kristopher -
  Saw your post to my question; so you're saying Plextor has a d/l DVD RW? I checked Plextor-America's site and didn't see a D/L model there. Can you point me to a link?
  
  Thanks,
  
  Darth Ranger

• Bozo Galora - Saturday, September 4, 2004 - link

  Well well, quite a hodge podge of opinions and corrections.
  
  First of all the "retail" version with "honeycombed" casing to lower noise is not out yet. Its PART number is DVR-A08XL.
  DVR-108 is the name of the drive and DVR-108D is the bare drive OEM bulk PART number.
  
  I got that info from the cdrinfo article touted above, which does seem to be a lot more informative, and paints a lot less rosy picture of the drive.
  http://cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?...
  
  After reading AT review, I had actually written a check to edazz.com for 5 of them ($89 shipped). Thanks to comments here, I ripped up the check and am now on hold again.
  
  As far as the Plextor being $30 more expensive, pricegrabber.com has it for ~$122 at several vendors with 2 dif $30 rebate coupons noted, good until Oct.
  
  So then I went to cdrlabs.com and saw one of the the new Liteon 16X will have a USB port version...
  "Also available in an external version around October, the SOHW-1633SX offers an integrated USB 2.0 port for easy, flexible connectivity, and is ideal for users ‘on the go’."
  
  "Fewer mistakes than usual" comment by belzer - heh heh. Quite an indictment.
  
  I really need some DVD burners badly, but I guess I have to wait this stuff out.
  
  And will have to take future AT optical reviews with a grain of salt - so to speak.
  
  

• kcma - Friday, September 3, 2004 - link

  I never read Anandtech's optical storage reviews, why? Because any burner reviews without tests on protected media is not worth my time reading. I browsed through the article quickly and once again, no tests are done on ripping and burning protected titles. If I was wrong because I browsed too quickly, I apologize. I would love to see this changed though, Maybe future articles can include these tests?

• bendixG15 - Thursday, September 2, 2004 - link

  Okay;;Is there a diference between the model
  DVR-108 asnd the DVR-108D ????
  
  

• KristopherKubicki - Thursday, September 2, 2004 - link

  Questar: The ridata media is pretty terrible. I havent seen another burner that burns it well either.
  
  Then again, look at some of our other dual layer tests that cant even burn the good MKM stuff.
  
  Kristopher

• mud - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link

  "but since dual layer media still costs several dollars a disc"
  
  Can someone tell me where I can find dual layer media at that price!?

• Questar - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link

  A drive that FAILED half of the +R9 tests is considered the best drive you have ever tested?!?
  
  WTF was an average drive then??
  
  

• KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link

  Belzer youre correct, ill have that changed.
  
  Kristopher

• Belzer - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link

  Congratulations, fewer mistakes in this reveiw than usual. Here is a major one though:
  "CMC MAG F01
  This is an Imation disc rated at 8x write speeds."
  
  If this was rated 8x, which I doubt, it must be a mistake in production. CMC MAG F01 is the MID for CMC Magnetics 4x certified discs. If you had really tried a CMC Magnetics 8x disc, MID CMC MAG E01, you would actually have been able to try the burner @16x speed as it allows overspeeding on this media.

• KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, September 1, 2004 - link

  DarthRanger: I am guessing you didnt read the review.
  
  Kristopher