DVR-104 burns at 4x?

[mp3superfreak]

I found this interesting post over at CreativeCow's forums. Read it here:

Pioneer DVR-104 Burns at 4x

Here's the text for those who don't like to leave this forum

Bought the DVR-104 a few months ago, with the knowledge that the top speed was 2X. Then I saw a post in some forum that said the firmware should be updated to prevent damage to the drive when using the new higher speed disks. I downloaded the update but didn't install it; I decided to do a little more research first, to see if anyone was having problems with the update. A few folks had some problems, so I held off. Then I see a post from a guy who says he contacted Pioneer and the told him if his drive was version 1.30 or higher, he didn't have to update. That was the version of MY burner, so again I held off. It came time to burn some DVDs for a project I was doing, and I ended up getting some Memorex v. 2.0 DVD-R disks (they were out of Maxells and I needed something). When I went to burn the 80-minute project, I left the computer, fully expecting it to take 40 minutes to record. When I checked back later, I couldn't believe it was already done, so I timed the next one.......18 minutes! Now I've found that the Maxells do the same thing.
Here's what I think. Pioneer designed the drive for 2x, and then when the higher speed disks came out, they found that the drive burned them at 4x. Gee, now we can release a "new" drive that burns at 4x (the old model with a new label), but we'll have to cripple all those drives out there before everyone finds out their drives will burn 4X. So we'll tell 'em that if they don't do this update, their drives might be damaged. Well, I've burned over 20 disks at 4x now, with no problems.
The above rant comes from my experience only, your mileage may vary. All accusations are my opinion and purely speculative only, and if I'm totally wrong on this I will post a public apology to Pioneer. Or not.

Interesting to say the least...

[simmons3d]

How big was the 80 min project? I have a feeling it is buring at 2x. It takes about 28min for my 104 to burn a full 4.3 gig file at 2x. It would take about 15min at 4x.

[bartman]

80 minutes doesn't say much about what file size the source was. Most DVD-R's are marketed at 120min of video using some standard bitrate. At that standard 80 minutes wouldn't fill a disk and the burn would take less.

As simmons3d said, a full disk a 4x would take ~15 minutes. A partial disk would be even less, so 18 minutes for a burn isn't anything special.

Technically, the laser needs to be more powerful in order to burn at 4x. The stock laser in the 104 wouldn't have been designed with this power output in mind and if you wound it up that high you would probably kill your drive.

[THE RIPPER]

Yeah i heard it will burn yer laser out pretty quick if you do that.

[byrdmaniac69]

He expected the burn to take 40 mins tells me it was about 2.75 gigs of data at 1x, at least thats about the amount of time my 104 takes for 2.5-3 gigs- close estimates.
The new memorex dvd-rs do burn at 2x in my 104 with firmware 1.32.
18 minutes would be roughly half the 40 minute expected result so I believe the 2x speed threw the user off and they thought it is 4x.
Besides even a full 4.37 dvd-r should only take between 14-15 minutes max by my calculations.
I do wish my 104 would burn at 4x or at least burn dvd-rw at 2x.

[SLK001]

Rest assured that the DVR-104 and DVR-A04 burn only with a maximum speed of 2X - no matter what disk you decide to put in them.