Pioneer vs Sony

Hey guys... im planning on gettin either the pioneer or sony dvdRW drives. just wondering what your experience's with these two are? how are they comparable? both in transfer rates and format compatibility?

i know that the pioneer (ao5) onyl records -
and the sony can do both + and -
i can get the ao5 for 490 Canadain
and the sony for 575 Canadian

but what other reasons would there be for me to choose one over the other??

well will you be wanting to rw ? if so go with the sony, if not go with the pioneer

ya, i will want to use both r and rw

so why go with sony for rw over the pioneer?

if they could only decide on a standard format by tomorrow.. i know id be happy would make life soo much easier

Well I wouldnt go with either right now. The a05 has alot of firmware issues and it has trouble playing lower quality media. Its biggest problem is burning at 2x, only the high end media (apple, verbatim, maxell) stuff likes to work in these drives and this media is ~2$ a disc. All the cheap princo, leda, bulkpaq discs that go for ~.65$ a disc generally do not work. This is a big concern if you want to make alot of backups (ie xbox, ps2 games).

The dru500a on the other hand seems to work pretty well but is too darned exspensive. Also the + standard discs cost more and ALOT of home dvd players, ps2, some xboxes cant play them. The - standard has been around longer and has a nice user base behind it. Even though + is considered to be the better media, - is whats used and this may turn into another VHS vs beta thing.

Also 4x dvd media is like 4.50 per disc which is a complete waste unless you have lots of cash to blow. I for one wouldnt spend 250$ on a 50 pack of dvd's and you can get 2x 50 pack for ~ 35$.

Best bet is the pioneer A04, rock stable firmware, can burn pretty much anything under the sun and accepts the cheaper media.

the AO4 i can get for about 30 bucks cheaper. thats whay i was considering the AO5, and i wasnt aware that the AO5 had firmware problems.

"All the cheap princo, leda, bulkpaq discs that go for ~.65$ a disc generally do not work. This is a big concern if you want to make alot of backups (ie xbox, ps2 games)."

what do you mean by that? it just doesnt want to read those lower quality stuff eh? i know i will be burning a lot, so i needed the speed, but was looking to get the dvdr's for around a buck (canadian). but firmware does get upgraded when the company upgrades its stuff right? like i would be able to download and flash the firmware for updates am i not right? so then the drive would be useful to me.

does anyone own the AO5 or have any experiences with it?

raven said:

does anyone own the AO5 or have any experiences with it?

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Yeah, i own the 105 (a05) and i haven't gotten one succesfull burn out of it.

I got the DVR-105 last friday and it's even picky with certified media, planning on returning it. Some people have even had problems with the supplied media (retail) burning @ 2x.

So it has some serious issues at 2x and beyond. 1x usually works fine on certified media. You can forget about cheap media.

Buy another writer. Piece of sh*t. Either go for the 104 (a04) or buy the sony / nec. Sorry, but my feelings are rather hurt after wasting ~$450 on burner and media.

its not the writer that has the problems its the media itself. This exact same thing happened when all the 2x drives started to appear, im sure the a05 will be a good drive you just need to wait for a firmware upgrade and some newer media revisions.

Best choice for right now is a04

best choice in 2-3 months probalby a 4x burner..right now 4x media is 2-5 times more exspensive then 2x media.

DipStickTony said:

its not the writer that has the problems its the media itself. This exact same thing happened when all the 2x drives started to appear, im sure the a05 will be a good drive you just need to wait for a firmware upgrade and some newer media revisions.

Best choice for right now is a04

best choice in 2-3 months probalby a 4x burner..right now 4x media is 2-5 times more exspensive then 2x media.

Click to expand...

It's the writer that causes the problem, or the firmware and pioneer's attitude to cheaper media. Sony did the exact same thing and they got flamed for it, couple of days later they released a firmware that made cheaper media work.

Most cheap media worked like a charm with the .53 firmware.

im plannin on gettin the burner when i get my new pc.. which will probably be in janurary. the ao5 better have a firmware update so that it can read cheap media and it better not be the writter hardware which doesnt like cheap media... thats all im looking for. dont need 4x media right now. will be buyin cheap media in bulk.

the only thing i can do now is wait for updates from pioneer

Sony more flexibility for the future.

if you can wait i wouldn't get either, i remember buying a 2x HP cd-writer back in the day , and it absolutely sucked, i expect the same from early dvd writers