I
t’s a tough era for CD and DVD burners.
Optical drives have pretty much hit the
ceiling on read and write speeds (with the
exception of the seldom-used rewriteable
variants and expensive double-layer discs),
so it’s not easy to get the attention of geeks
who are busy selling their old Atari cartridg-
es on eBay to afford a dual-videocard SLI
rig. Find out how Pioneer and HP are sexing
up ye olde red laser while we wait for high-
capacity blue laser drives to arrive.
—LOGAN DECKERPIONEER DVR-110DBK
Although Pioneer paved the way for con-
sumer DVD burning with DVD-R, the format
was eventually eclipsed by rival format
DVD+R, which managed to ramp up write
speeds much faster than DVD-R. So the
feisty manufacturer has thrown a curveball
by adding support for DVD-RAM. Well, sort
of. The model we received for testing is the
DVR-110DBK, which can read DVD-RAM
discs (without the protective cartridges,
unfortunately), but can’t write to them. The
DVR-110, which should be available by the
time you read this, will be able to read and
write to DVD-RAM discs, making the addi-
tional format actually useful.
The bizarre read-only DVD-RAM support
is not, to our dismay, augmented by wildly
superior performance in reading and writing
to the more familiar DVD-R/W and DVD+R/W
formats. For example, it took 6:21 (min:sec) to
write 4.25GB of data at 16x to a DVD+R disc,nearly a half-minute
behind drives from
BenQ and Plextor.
We think the drive
could have done bet-
ter—it took nearly 20
seconds to “close”
the disc, spinning up
the disc several times
during the process every time we tested it. It
shouldn’t have taken more than a few seconds
to do so. Writing to DVD-R took even longer at
6:33, which is humiliating when you consider
that it’s Pioneer’s own format. While the drive
is rated for 8x double-layer burning in both for-
mats, it couldn’t “overspeed” our 4x Verbatim
media, and managed just a ho-hum 18:02
writing 7.5GB of data to 8x media. Although
Pioneer will no doubt shine up the firmware to
support a wider range of media, there’s simply
not much else about the DVR-110 to boast
about to your friends, family, or pets.HP DVD740I
Instead of allowing you to read from, but
not write to, a minor-league
DVD format, HP decided to
throw in LightScribe to spice up
this burner. That’s no surprise
as HP invented the cool disc-
labeling technology.
The dvd740i whipped
Pioneer’s DVR-110 in just about
every event, most notably writ-
ing 4.25GB of data to a 16x
DVD+R disc, completing the
task in an astonishing 5:35 (min:
sec), and beating Plextor’s PX-
716A by a hearty 15 seconds!
Burning 7.5GB to a double-
layer DVD+R disc was accom-plished in a tidy 16:01, easily reaching the
upper echelons of double layer-burning
optical drives, and the drive was also par-
ticularly swift ripping a DVD-Video.
Although LightScribe is a notoriously
time-consuming method of labeling your
discs, HP has reduced the time it takes to
print a complex image at the best quality
setting; the dvd740i forked over our disc
in 28:48, 10 minutes less than it took to do
the same with our first LightScribe drive.
And because LightScribe doesn’t require
babysitting, you can just pop the disc in
and go out to lunch.DVD Burner Head
Turners
Pioneer and HP rush the stage with faster, fancier optical drives
The modest and plain Pioneer DVR-110DBK performs just
as it looks.HP’s dvd740i might take a half hour
to print complex images, but we just
can’t get enough of the party-making
LightScribe technology.$90, http://www.pioneerelectronics.comPIONEER DVR-110DBKBABIES
Competent drive with DVD-
RAM read support, and
much improved software.
RABIES^6
Behind-the-curve speeds, and
it’s rather noisy burning to DVD
at high speeds.$120, http://www.hp.comHP DVD740IBUMBLEBEES
Fast burner; LightScribe
labeling; ideal size for small
formfactor cases.
SCABIES
Limited overspeeding support
and relatively high access times
hold the drive back.reviewsTESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED
MA XIMUMPC DECEMBER 2005
PIONEER HPBest scores are bolded. The data CD burn test uses the bundled applications to create a 700MB CD-R.
The single-layer data DVD burn test uses the bundled applications to create a 4.25GB disc. The double-
layer data DVD burn test uses the bundled applications to create an 8.3GB disc. The DVD-Video
extraction test uses a 6GB commercially stamped DVD. All test were performed uaing Verbatim media,
except where noted.BENCHMARKS
CD BENCHMARKS
WRITE SPEED AVERAGE 30.27x 30.41x
READ SPEED AVERAGE 31.86x 32.19x
ACCESS TIME (RANDOM/FULL) 126ms/253ms 114ms/192ms
CPU UTILIZATION 6% (8x) 6% (8x)
DVD BENCHMARKS
WRITE SPEED AVERAGE 11.58x 11.94x
READ SPEED AVERAGE 9.36x 7.57x
DVD-VIDEO EXTRACTION 6:26 5:51
ACCESS TIME (RANDOM/FULL) 148ms/240ms 134ms/290ms
CPU UTILIZATION 23% (2x) 16% (2x)