Pioneer DVR-A06 DVD Writer: The War +/- Won't Happen

DVD Writing Tests

Write performances were impressive, at least for writing to +R media. On the other hand, some ground was lost on the -R format, which were 12 seconds slower than the predecessor DVR-A05 and 16 seconds slower than the Sony DRU-500A. Since only a few seconds were at stake, however, the time difference was minimal.

Conclusion

As has historically been the case with CD writers, the main motivation for manufacturers is how to boost speed. Today, 4x is more or less the norm. At that speed, less than 5.54 Mb of data are written per second. However, these speeds require media that is certified to write at 4x. Using CD-R diskscan to boost the write speed is impossible with DVDs. In fact, as in the case of the CD-RW format, the certified speed is listed on the back of blank DVD labels. It is read by the writer upon insertion and interpreted by the writing software.

The DVR-A06 is an excellent product that contains all the latest DVD-writing technology. Of course, other manufacturers have already announced equivalent products, but we're still waiting to see them.

The only downside is the DVR-A06's high price tag, akin to the high price of Sony's DRU-500A.

The official retail price is $250 (237 euro), but that is the price consumers sometimes must pay for exclusivity, and also a price we expect to rapidly fall during the new few weeks.