Pioneer 109 Record Times

[goat]

Streaming video .....

[willrob]

Apple released a patch for the Java problem

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21527

As for the slower burn times... I'm dismayed to hear that the 1.4 firmware doesn't improve the situation. I assumed that was my problem.

[gspanos@comcast.net]

That is interesting about the media.

I'm wondering about the possibility of installing my burner in my iMac using an 80 wire cable.

[lordsmurf]

The fellow at the Mac store said that you couldn't get top burning speed unless you were using a Powerbook or Power Mac G5 with Firewire 800.

That "fellow" is an idiot.

[gspanos@comcast.net]

Maybe thought I'd buy something from him. So, how do I get 16x burning speed with an iMac G4 and an external Pioneer 109?

[willrob]

After reading a number (endless it seemed) of threads on the CD Freaks Pioneer forum, I noticed that some people were able to get the kind of speeds that Toast predicts, but others weren't. And this is on the same brand media (Verbatim 16X). I also noticed a number of complaints that the drive tops out at 40X for 52X CD-R media.

Having some lying around, I gave it a try and burned a data disk that that Toast prediced would take 1'46" (at 40X)...and Toast burned away for 4'08". So it's not merely a DVD issue. Its a general hardware underperformance. I suppose it's possible there are lemons in the Pioneer manufacturing and that I got one of them.

[lordsmurf]

If this is not translating to PC usage, and it's not, then you need to look instead at the Mac setup and the software.

Nero 6 also causes underruns and other issues, things not found in other burning software, namely Prassi engine burning apps. Maybe TOAST is also being finicky.

At any rate, have you done 1.40 yet? That firmware fixed lots of issues. You need it. Anybody with a Pioneer 109 needs it.

[willrob]

I came across this exchange at the rpc forum, which seems relavent. The first person has just updated his 108 with the flashkit from LasVegas:

"Finally, I ran a DVD recording operation in Toast to verify things really worked. Ran a 4.2 GB set of files in just under 4 minutes.
_____________

Reading this I'm sure Toast also (like Nero) doesn't display the correct time because of Z-CLV.
_________________
You're right.
But they are trying: with any new (sub-) version I found that older, known drives were shown with better estimates. I suspect they are trying to carry a table with some characteristics of known drives. Still not exact for the A07XL @ 8X in Toast 6.0.9, but better than in 607 and much better than in 605.
____________
Even Apple's 'Disk Utility' guestimates (sic CLV) incorrectly on Pioneer drives. I'm sure for the same reason."

So it may simply be that Toast 6.09 doesn't have the correct data tables for the 109, and needs to be updated before we can see accurate predictions.

[willrob]

I haven't done the upgade yet. Tomorrow I'll see if my local computer shop can do it for me. A guy on the Cd Freaks site did his at Kinkos—but he has a USB 2 external case to put it into.

But goat has the 1.4 firmware and a simlar set up as mine with no improvement.

If I was really brave, I'd become one of LasVegas' betatester. But one needs a PC to recover from a failed install.

[goat]

I called Pioneer yesterday to find out why the burning time is slow. The responce I got was .... "Oh these drives (A09) are not set up for Mac's .... It must be a Mac OS problem or a Toast problem why they are not burning up to speed .... The Verbatim 16x disc are verified by Pioneer to burn at 16x."
Sounds to me like a run around!!!

I decided to try my test (see this thread) out again, this time on my Pioneer 105 (its been flashed)

The Incredibles 4.4 G

Memorex 4x DVD-R
Toast said 13:06
Actual time (start to finish) 15:08

So I hope Pioneer addresses this problem ... for me the A09 does not burn at its rated speed.

Has anyone tested the NEC3520 or the Plextor 716? I'm curious to see how these drive perform.

[willrob]

The inaccurate expected time is the fault of Toast. The slow burning is another issue. Toast's database of drives probably doesn't have the 109 in it yet; although it should have the 105. What Toast is doing is reading some data on the blank disk and assuming the device will burn at the speed indicated by the media potential. But our 109's are failing to write at that speed (and we're not alone in this, there are other's who have noticed this problem, both on Macs and PCs).

[gspanos@comcast.net]

I don't know if this is relevant to this issue or not, but I noticed that when I select a burner to burn DVDs authored with iDVD 5, iDVD recognizes my internal A06 and my external 105, but not the external 109.

[willrob]

iDVD doesn't burn to externals. The version 5 can save the project as a disk image, and then you can use Toast to burn externally.

[gspanos@comcast.net]

iDVD5 does burn to externals, but apparently not to the Pioneer 109. Thanks to a tip from someone here, I downloaded Hurz and Pfurz, and those did the trick.

[chikanakan]

Toast has not used a drive database for over 5 years. Everything is detected in firmware. That is why so many drive just work with Toast. It knows how to detect the need info form the firmware.

The reason Toast gives an inaccutate time is because the drive is CAV. In Toast, the media is detect at 16x, which it is, but the problem is that the drive can't burn 16x to the entire disc.

Toast displays the 16x speed because that is what selected, but the drive does it's own thing after that, and starts the burn at 6x working it's way up to 16x at the end.

There is nothing Toast can do to improve this because the drive is in control. The best thing is to display the actual speed or something besides the expected time.

Drives that use Z-CLV are even worse because they slow down and speed up with a zone change and that can mess up the time.

All my 16x burns works at the expect speed. The Pioneer 109 takes 8 minutes 40 seconds to burn 4.4GB on 16x media. The Pioneer is not a good 16x burner. The Benq and Lite-on burn 16x media at a little over 5 minutes.

Many drives will also change speeds after the burn starts. They then they can burn at 16x, but when the laser fires up the drive realizes it can do 16x and changes the speed on the fly.

[gspanos@comcast.net]

Very helpful post. Thanks.

[sjk]

MBBench simulates CD/DVD burns for measuring the speed of recording devices.

[lordsmurf]

If I can use a Pioneer 109 on Windows XP and get a 16x burn in 5-6 minutes, then so can you. It is not a drive error. It's something to do with the backwards hacks that must be used on Apple systems for "unofficial" drives and the fact that the drive is newer than the software in use.

Keep searching for answers, don't just blame the drive and move on. The hardware is perfectly capable of 16x burns in 5-6 minutes. And 8x burns in 7-9 minutes.

It may even be some sort of IDE/firewire communication, much like DMA mode is a plague on Windows XP, often causing slow burns if set to PIO.

[willrob]

All my 16x burns works at the expect speed. The Pioneer 109 takes 8 minutes 40 seconds to burn 4.4GB on 16x media. The Pioneer is not a good 16x burner. The Benq and Lite-on burn 16x media at a little over 5 minutes.

Chikanakan: I'm a little confused by your post. Are you using the 109 or the Liteon, or Benq drive? If your 16X burns are at the expected speed, do you mean that Toast is saying the burn will take 8 min and that's what it takes? Or is Toast (as in my case as well as others) saying a 16X burn of 4+G should take 3'50" and it's taking 8 min? My 16 media (Verbatim) burns take about 10 min, but my 8x media (TDK) burns a bit faster—and at a more consistant rate.

[goat]

Lordsmurf,
Any ideas why I'm getting the slow burn speed with the Verbatim 16x? I bought the A09 so no hacks were used. I used Virtual PC to update the firmware to 1.40 ... I got it from the pioneer website so it should be good.

[chikanakan]

I've used the Pioneer 108, 109, BenQ, Lite-on and more. The Pioneer has always been the slowest at 16x burns.

As for Toast, Toast always gives 3:50 seconds fox a 16x burn. As I explained, this is do to the write mode. So, the burn takes about 8:20, but the time says 3:50 for a Pioneer 109. For a BenQ drive Toast says 3:50, but burns in about 5:20.

Media is really important, and the drive will slow down or speed up depending on how it detects the media while burning. Verbatim may get bufferrun run errors and that time it takes to recover cause the burn to take 10 minutes. TDK may not have that problem.

In any case, it very complicated because after a certain point the drive just does what it wants with the media.

As for what LordSmurf said about PIO, he is 100% correct about that. The Mac doesn't do the right thing with PIO. If I remember correctly, it always uses PIO and that cause slower burners.

I'm out of 16x media now, so I can do any more testing now. When I get more media I can try again with the drive internal, not firewire.

Flashing the firmware on the Mac or PC will not effect the performance of the drive as long as the flash went ok. I flashed my drive on the PC and I'm using it on the Mac.

[goat]

Whick BenQ model do you have? Also is it Apple supported?