Pioneer DVR 105

...it has served me well. Pioneer is a well known and respected name in the world of electronic entertainment, not as big as Sony but they can hold their own. The drive itself is very plain on the front and is light grey instead of the classic beige colour of PCs. Although it's simple, it isn't ugly or boring to look at at all, a very nice drive to have seen on your PC. This is a DVD-RW drive so it is only compatible with DVD-R and DVD-RW media, not ...
...However, the big wigs at Pioneer released a firmware upgrade for this drive and software upgrade for the Instant CD/DVD v6.5 application, and after a quick upgrade it becomes super compatible with almost all types of DVD-R media thrown at it. Be it Verbatim, Bulkpaq, Packard Bell, Philips, etc, it works with all of them and reads them great afterwards. The firmware upgrade will update the firmware to version 1.33, both the firmware and the program ... more

Back in the day when we were still using audio casettes to record music and strangle each other when they don't work, Philips came along and said, "Hey, lets invent the CD and make audio better!" And they did.

When the CD was out everybody enjoyed better quality music and since strangling was no longer an issue, we started chucking CDs at each other. Then the geniuses thought, "We know, let's introduce the CD Writer so the home owners can make their own CDs!" And they did.

CDs could not only store audio but also be used to store data. Because of this, software companies wanted to use it's 650MB space for it's software and/or games. Thus the age of advanced piracy dawned upon us with audio CDs copied, games copied, hell even reference CDs were being copied. It was an epidemic and frankly nobody cared, except for the gaming, music, film and software making industries. They were mad, very mad.

Besides being rather annoyed at home owners copying their hard work and not paying a thing for it, the CD was also beginning to show it's age as the 650MB was no longer large enough. So once again, the geniuses to the rescue with the DVD (actually it's laser disc but nobody knows what it is so I'll leave it out.) DVD discs can hold up to 18GB of data if both sides of the disc is used and if each side is double layered. This was an amazing leap from CD media so many companies decided to switch to DVDs as their storage medium.

Ah but you see, the software exploiters could not keep quiet, they demanded DVD writers to appear, so they could 'make their own home movies'. After much rambling, the geniuses thought, "Oh shut up here you go you retards" and we have our DVD writer. And once again, the cycle of piracy starts all over. But this time the geniuses had a trick up their sleeves, they made sure this drive only wrote on one side of the disc and only to one layer, meaning we only got 4.7GB out of the whole thing. Ah well, nothing a bit of perserverance and moaning can't get you, the first of the double layer drives and media has already been released but that's another story.

Hey before you get the wrong idea I do not condone software piracy. If you use hardware to copy whatever you like then that's up to you, but to be honest when you're caught the Police will have very little sympathy for you. So remember, crime doesn't pay and when it does it'll be you paying.

This was the first DVD Re-Writer I ever had and basically it has served me well. Pioneer is a well known and respected name in the world of electronic entertainment, not as big as Sony but they can hold their own. The drive itself is very plain on the front and is light grey instead of the classic beige colour of PCs. Although it's simple, it isn't ugly or boring to look at at all, a very nice drive to have seen on your PC. This is a DVD-RW drive so it is only compatible with DVD-R and DVD-RW media, not the DVD+R and DVD+RW (attention to the - and the +). This is important because you don't want to be paying for the wrong type of DVD discs.

Since this is one of the earlier drives, it can only write to one layer discs (4.7GB discs). This drive is an IDE drive so any standard PC can have it installed for immediate DVD reading and writing. Well of course it depends if the owner of the PC is knowledgable in the arts of PC upgrading.

This drive is the DVR-105 drive which is the OEM drive, the retail drive is called DVR-A05 and it's basically the same but with more extras than the OEM and costs more to. What's the extras? The A05 would get bundled software MyDVD Video Suite 4 and Instant CD/DVD v6.5, 1x DVD-R and 1x DVD-RW discs, 1x IDE cable, instruction manual, warrantee card and a shiny retail box. The OEM just gets Instant CD/DVD v6.5, but hey it's cheaper for a reason right?

The instruction manual needs a little help, but at least it's concise and straight to the point of what you need to do with it. Why are instructions always in black and white for PC stuff?

How fast is this drive? 4x write to DVD-R, 2x write for DVD-RW, 16x write for CD-R, 8x write for CD-RW, 32x read for CD and 6x read for DVD. It can churn out DVDs in about 15 minutes (very fast compared to the 1x drives that do it in over 1 hour), and CD writing is also very fast. The access times for DVD and CD can be a bit slow but after it reads the disc it will fly with them. Back then when I first had this drive, these specs were very good. Nowadays though, these specs would make you laugh because they are just too slow in comparison. 8x writers (churns out DVDs in 7 minutes) are already out and it's showing this drive how old and crusty it really is.

Although it is rather old (computer hardware after a year is considered old and outdated), it is one of the most reliable DVD writers I have ever come across. When you first use it it will be rather lame and only write to expensive discs, the cheap ones i.e. Memorex DVD-R, would be written on but afterwards the drive cannot read from the media and nor can other drives. However, the big wigs at Pioneer released a firmware upgrade for this drive and software upgrade for the Instant CD/DVD v6.5 application, and after a quick upgrade it becomes super compatible with almost all types of DVD-R media thrown at it. Be it Verbatim, Bulkpaq, Packard Bell, Philips, etc, it works with all of them and reads them great afterwards. The firmware upgrade will update the firmware to version 1.33, both the firmware and the program update can be found at the Pioneer website. Because Ciao is such a restrictive and moany company, I can't give you the link here but you can find it easily on any search engine.

This drive has been discontinued so you would be very lucky to find it at any retail store or online shop. I found this drive on EBAY for around £20 and that is amazing value for money. Have a hunt around EBAY you may find it even more cheaper than that price.

This is a highly recommended DVD-RW drive and at the current cheap price it's very hard to find any faults with it. Very reliable after flash and software upgrade, but should of came like that in the first place. Access times could be a little faster as well. If this drive supported DVD+ then it would of been complete, but on it's own it is still a very charismatic drive. Buy this if you need high compatibility for low price!

9/10 (after update)

3/10 (before update, man it's like trying to get Grandpa John to chew when recording cheap DVD-R) 

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