Back to basics - back to buring bits! Thanks to Pioneer Europe, we have had the chance to play around with the brand new Pioneer DVR-116D recorder. The DVR-116D is a high speed burner that records DVD-R media up to 20x speed and DVD+R DL with the maximum speed of 12x. On the other hand [...]

Pioneer BDC-202 is an interesting combo drive that brings you the features of a Blu-ray BD-ROM drive and a DVD recorder. As such it is an interesting choice for any home computer, but especially for HTPCs due to the Blu-ray playback features. We have just started testing the drive, and as usual our primary interest [...]

Usually when we review drives we focus mainly on the recording quality, and media quality scans. However in the case of Pioneer DVR-215 it quickly became obvious that it wasn’t the most interesting way to go, as it seems to deliver identical results in terms of recording quality than the recently reviewed Pioneer DVR-115D. This [...]

Pioneer Electronics just sent out an interesting announcement regarding their Blu-ray BD-ROM / DVD-RW combo drive. According to their press release, the BDC-S02 combo drive can now be purchased for less than €150 or £100 in Europe. While it is still somewhat more expensive than a plain DVD-RW drive, the price range of Blu-ray [...]

Maxell is a well known media manufacturer that has been in the business for decades. They used to ship media of their own using Maxell’s media indetifiers (MID), but recently the manufacturer of their media has varied a lot. We tested their current 16x DVD recordable offering for both, DVD-R and DVD+R. The DVD-R discs [...]

Not too many authors in the blogosphere seem to be interesting in DVD recording and blank media quality. While the recorder and media technology has evolved and matured over the years, the quality of available media on the market still varies a lot. In fact it can vary from absolute rubbish to high quality and [...]

DVD recording technology has not taken any quantum leaps recently. The recording speeds are pretty close to the velocities physically possible, and overall the technology is quite mature. Nevertheless it is nice to see the vendors still releasing new and improved models. Pioneer DVR-115D continues the famous product line of Pioneer Electronics and while it [...]

It is quite important to regularly update the firmware of your DVD recorder. Firmware updates can significantly improve the recording quality of your recorder and add compatibility for more DVD±RW media. Basically the firmware contains a database of media types and the settings/tunings for the specified media, that the recorder will use as you burn [...]

Firmware updates for Pioneer recorders, including but not limited to the following models:
DVR-212, DVR-212BK, DVR-212D, DVR-212DBK, DVR-112, DVR-112BK, DVR-112D, DVR-112DBK, DVR-112DSV, DVR-111, DVR-111BK, DVR-111D, DVR-111DBK, DVR-111DSV, DVR-110, DVR-110BK, DVR-110SV, DVR-110D, DVR-110DBK, DVR-110DSV, DVR-A09XLA, A09XLB, A09XLC, 109XLA1, 109XLB1, 109XLC1, DVR-109, DVR-109BK, DVR-109, DVR-109BK, DVR-A08XLA, -A08XLB, -A08XLC, DVR-108, DVR-108BK, DVR-A07XLA/XLB, DVR-A07U, DVR-107D, DVR-A06, DVR-106D, DVR-A05, DVR-105, DVR-A04, [...]