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Review: Pioneer BDR-203BK Reviewed by: Dee-27 Provided by: Pioneer Europe NV Firmware: 1.10 Manufactured: December 2008

Pioneer was kind enough to send us the BDR-203BK Blu-ray writer for review. The drive supports Blu-ray writing and reading, in addition, this drive also supports DVD±R/RW, DVD-RAM and CD-R/RW writing.

It’s always exciting to get hold of a new piece of technology, especially when the leap in technology is so far reaching as Blu-ray offers, with much improved storage capacity, the possibility of being able to watch movies in High Definition, bringing a completely new viewing experience.

In this review we will be testing out the latest Blu-ray burner, the BDR-203BK from Pioneer, one of the world’s most respected electronics manufacturers.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK supports 8x BD-R, 2x BD-RE, 16x DVD±R, 8x/6x DVD+RW/-RW, and 8x DVD+R DL/-R DL writing technology, allowing Blu-ray discs of 50GB and DVD Double/Dual Layer discs of 8.5GB to be written. In addition, the Pioneer BDR-203BK also supports DVD-RAM reading and writing at 5x.

Company Information

We are sure that most of you know Pioneer already, but if you would like to find out more about Pioneer, you can find out by checking the company information found at: http://www.pioneer.eu/

 

Drive Specifications

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We found the specifications of the Pioneer BDR-203BK at the Pioneer website

What’s inside the box

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Now it’s time to take a look at the drive itself and what the drive came shipped with.

Our bulk package contained the Pioneer BDR-203BK drive.

Now let’s take a look at the drive.

The bezel of the Pioneer BDR-203BK is plainly styled. We can also see various logos, an emergency eject hole, single green LED and an eject button.

Drive top

Drive bottom

On the top of the drive we found two labels and we can see the drive was manufactured in Japan during December 2008.

On the rear of the drive we can see from left to right, a factory configuration connector, SATA power and data connectors.

 

 

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Test machine

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For this review we will be using a computer with the following configuration:

Hardware:

• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4 (Intel X48 chipset)
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
• RAM: 8 GB Crucial Balistix Tracer (red) dual channel kit DDR2 800
• GFX: ATI HD 4870 (512 Megabytes GDDR5 HDCP compliant)
• Sound: Onboard Realtek ALC889 HD audio controller
• Hard disk OS: OCZ Vertex series 120GB SSD
• Hard disk storage: 2X 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (SATA 2) - 1x 1TB WD green.
• Case: Antec 900
• PSU: Enermax Liberty 620W
• Display: Samsung Syncmaster 245B 24” widescreen LCD (HDCP compliant)
• Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium (64 bit) with Service Pack 1

 

System setup:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was connected to one of the main-board's SATA ports and reports as a PIONEER BD-RW BDR-203.

From the screenshot from Nero InfoTool above, we can see the Pioneer BDR-203BK supports BD-R, BD-RE and BD-ROM reading. According to Nero InfoTool, it also reports that the drive is capable of writing BD-R and BD-RE media. The drive came shipped with firmware version 1.10 and no updates were available at the time of writing this review.

Installed software:

• Nero Burning Rom 9
• Nero CD/DVD Speed
• Nero InfoTool
• DVDFab Platinum
• Slysoft CloneCD
• Exact Audio Copy

 

Our review PC has Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit installed with Service Pack 1.

Features and techniques

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Internal layout

Now let’s take a look at the internals of the Pioneer BDR-203BK

In the above screenshot we can see the Pioneer BDR-203BK PCB and drive mechanism.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK is powered by a Renesas chipset, but we were unable to identify the chipset model number.

 

Software Bundle:

Now let’s take a brief look at the supplied software bundle. Please note, we may not use any of this software in this review.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK is supplied with CyberLink’s BD Solution software and includes the following applications.

• Power Producer
• Power Director
• PowerDVD 8
• Instant Burn
• Power2Go
• BD Advisor

Blu-ray disc Suite main menu

Power Producer main menu

Power DVD

Power2Go

Power2Go, make Blu-ray

Blu-ray Disc advisor

BookType (BitSetting):

The Pioneer BDR-203BK supports automatic BitSetting, and is capable of writing DVD+R DL media with DVD-ROM book type. However, BitSetting of DVD+R/RW is not supported.

Here is how you could check if your discs are really written with DVD-ROM book type:

Start Nero CD-DVD Speed and click the Disc info button and you should get something like this:

DVD+R DL with book type DVD-ROM

Another quick test is to start Nero CD-Speed and look at the disc information:

 

Writing technique

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Now it’s time to take a closer look at the write technology used by the Pioneer BDR-203BK:

For these tests we used CD-Speed and Nero Disc Speed and wrote a full disc at the drive’s maximum speed.

CD Recordable:

According to the specifications of the Pioneer BDR-203BK, it should be able to write CD-R media at a maximum speed of 32x.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 32X. This gives an average speed of 24.86x and a total writing time of 3 minutes and 58 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see, the Pioneer BDR-203BK was about average when writing CD-R media.

CD Re-writable:

According to the specifications of the Pioneer BDR-203BK, it should be able to write CD-RW media at a maximum speed of 24x.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 24X. This gives an average speed of 22.60x and a total writing time of 3 minutes and 58 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see, the Pioneer BDR-203BK was about average when compared to our other drives when writing CD-RW media.

16x DVD+R writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Pioneer BDR-203BK, it should be able to write DVD+R/-R media at a maximum speed of 16x.

DVD+R

The Pioneer BDR-203BK uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity) to write at its maximum speed of 16X. This gives an average speed of 11.68x and a total writing time of 5 minutes and 57 seconds.

16x DVD-R writing speed:

DVD-R

The Pioneer BDR-203BK uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity) to write at its maximum speed of 16X. This gives an average speed of 11.67x and a total writing time of 5 minutes and 47 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see from our tables, the Pioneer BDR-203BK was above average when writing DVD±R media.

8X DVD+RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Pioneer BDR-203BK, it should be able to write DVD+RW at a maximum speed of 8x.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 7.73x and a total writing time of 7 minutes and 55 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was about average regarding speed when writing our test DVD+RW media.

6x DVD-RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Pioneer BDR-203BK, it should be able to write DVD-RW at a maximum speed of 6x.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 6X. This gives an average speed of 6.00x and a total writing time of 10 minutes and 16 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was about average when writing DVD-RW media.

8x DVD+R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Pioneer BDR-203BK, it should be able to write DVD+R DL at a maximum speed of 8x.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 7.38x and a total writing time of 15 minutes and 56 seconds.

8x DVD-R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Pioneer BDR-203BK, it should be able to write DVD-R DL at a maximum speed of 8x.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 7.37x and a total writing time of 16 minutes and 29 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was the fastest when writing DVD+R DL media.

5x DVD-RAM writing speed

According to the specifications of the Pioneer BDR-203BK, it should be able to write DVD-RAM at a maximum speed of 5x.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 5X. This gives an average speed of 4.97x and a total writing time of 11 minutes and 6 seconds.

Below, we made a comparison table:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was the fastest drive when writing our DVD-RAM media.

8x BD-R (Single Layer) writing speed:

According to the specifications, the Pioneer BDR-203BK drive should be able to write BD-R 25GB Single Layer media at 8x. For this test we used Nero CD-DVD Speed to create a test disc. To test the drive’s maximum write speed, we enabled “Streaming.”

The Pioneer BDR-203BK uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 6.75x and a total writing time of 14 minutes and 49 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was the fastest drive when writing BD-R media.

2x BD-RE (Single Layer) writing speed:

According to the specifications, the Pioneer BDR-203BK drive should be able to write BD-RE 25GB Single Layer media at 2x.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 2X. This gives an average speed of 2.00x and a total writing time of 45 minutes and 34 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table:  

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was about average when writing our BD-RE media.

Summary:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was quite slow when writing to CD-R media, but since this is a Blu-ray drive, it's not something we should worry about. The Pioneer BDR-203BK was fast when writing DVD+R media. The Pioneer BDR-203BK was the fastest drive when writing DVD+R DL media and more important, the fastest drive when writing BD-R media.

 

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Reading performance

For these tests we will use Nero CD/DVD-Speed to read various BD’s, CD’s and DVD’s, including audio discs and DVD-media.

CD reading performance:

CD-ROM:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing the Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD that is close to 75 minutes in length. Below you will see the produced result:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK reached 41.61x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was about average when reading our test CD-ROM

CD Recordable discs:

For this test we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD. The disc we used was a Ricoh 52X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Moser Baer India.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK reached 32.87x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was one of the slowest drives when reading our test CD-R

CD Re-writable discs:

Again, we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD; this time we used a Verbatim Ultra Speed (32X) CD-RW disc made by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK reached 24.60x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was one of the slowest drives when reading our test CD-RW.

100 minute CD-R:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK reached 33.88x when reading our test 100 minute CD-R and had no problems reading our 100 minute test CD.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the Pioneer BDR-203BK, again we used Nero CD/DVD-Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is slightly larger than the disc used for the other tests, to be exact it’s nearly 79 minutes in length (78:53:31).

The Pioneer BDR-203BK reached 33.69x when reading our test audio disc. Let’s compare it with some drives below.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was about average when reading our test CD-Audio disc.

DVD reading performance:

Again, we will use Nero CD-Speed to measure the reading performance, this time for various types of DVD discs. The drive should read pressed single layer DVD-discs at 12X.

Pressed DVD Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with Single and Double Layer DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it’s useful to be able to read the discs at higher speeds if you’re going to extract (rip) the content of the disc to your hard drive.

DVD Video (single layer)

DVD Video (double layer OTP)

DVD Video (double layer PTP)

The Pioneer BDR-203BK is not riplocked and is able to read our single layer disc at 16x and our double layer test discs at 12x

We present the table below for comparison with other Blu-ray drives.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was the fastest drive when reading pressed DVD-Video discs.

DVD – DVD+R/RW:

For this test we used a Verbatim 16X DVD+R and a RICOH 8X DVD+RW with about 4.4GB of data. Below are the results:

DVD+R

DVD+RW

We present the table below for comparison with other Blu-ray drives.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was the fastest drive when reading DVD+RW and above average when reading DVD+R.

DVD – DVD-R/RW:

For this test we used a Verbatim 16X DVD-R disc and a Verbatim 6X DVD-RW disc filled with about 4.4GB of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

DVD-RW

There are hardly any differences in the speed, compared to reading the DVD+R/RW discs.

We present the table below for comparison with other Blu-ray drives.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was the fastest drive when reading DVD-RW and above average when reading DVD-R.

DVD±R DL discs:

DVD+R DL:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK read our DVD+R DL test disc at 12x reading speed.

DVD-R DL:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK read our DVD-R DL test disc at 12x reading speed.

We present the table below for comparison with other Blu-ray drives.

The Pioneer was the fastest drive when reading our test DVD±DL media.

DVD-RAM:

We present the table below for comparison with other Blu-ray drives.

The Pioneer was about average when reading our test DVD-RAM media.

Blu-ray reading performance:

BD-ROM SL

We selected a BD-ROM SL disc containing a movie (Planet Earth)

The Pioneer read our BD-ROM DL media at 8x reading speed.

BD-ROM DL:

We selected a BD-ROM DL disc containing the movie (Casino Royale)

The Pioneer BDR-203BK read our DL BD-ROM DL media at 8x reading speed.

BD-R:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK read our BD-R disc at 8x reading speed.

BD-R DL:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK read our BD-R DL disc at 6x reading speed.

BD-RE:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK read our BD-RE at 8x reading speed.

BD-RE DL:

 

The Pioneer BDR-203BK read our BD-RE at 6x reading speed.

Summary:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK is a very fast reader of BD media, currently supporting the fastest reading speeds available (8x). DVD media reading performance is also very good, and the fastest drive in many cases. The Pioneer BDR-203BK was also an extremely reliable reader throughout our tests.

 

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The specifications of the Pioneer BDR-203BK state that the drive is able to write CD-R/RW discs at 32x/24x. Let us find out how the drive really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

Write quality:

We will test CD-R discs from many different CD-R manufacturers. To really measure the write speed, we used the “create data CD” function in Nero CD-Speed. The discs were written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. For the quality test, we used Nero CD-Speed’s Disc Quality Scan and combined this with a Transfer Rate Test to test if the resulting disc was readable. Also note that different drives and different reading speeds may affect the results obtained when scanning the discs. We used a Lite-On SOHR-5238S drive with firmware 4S09 and scanned the discs at 48X speed.

There is more than one way to handle C1 and C2 error detection/correction, but a simple and common way is to detect and correct up to two errors per frame in each stage and detect three or more errors:

• E11: 1 error detected and corrected by C1 layer
• E21: 2 errors detected and corrected by C1 layer
• E31: 3 or more errors detected but not corrected by C1 layer

The sum of these (per second) is called the Block Error Rate: BLER=E11+E21+E31

• E32: 3 or more errors detected but not corrected by C2 layer

Any E31 is un-correctable by the C1 layer and will result in the bytes in that frame being redistributed into multiple frames which are passed to the C2 layer.

Any E32 is un-correctable by the C2 layer and will result in interpolation being used for Audio CDs or will result in third layer error correction being used for Data CDs.

Different drives have different ways of reporting these errors in a Disc Quality scan.  Lite-On CD-RW drives will report C1 and C2 errors this way:

• C1=BLER=E11+E21+E31
• C2=E32

Here is an easier way to look at Disc Quality Scanning:

A written CD-R disc will always have some C1 errors; C1 errors are easily corrected by the drive’s error correction capabilities. The next level of errors is C2, while C2 errors could also be corrected by most drive’s error correction capabilities; they are not wanted on a good quality disc. A good disc should not contain any C2 errors, and preferably have an average C1 error amount of below 2.0 for the best discs, or at least below 10.0 averages for good quality discs. After C2 errors, there are only un-correctable errors that will make a disc unusable.

In short, our analysis will be based on this guideline to determine the quality of the burned disc:

Below are the obtained results:

An excellent result to start our CD-R quality tests.

Our RICOH media manufactured by Moser Baer India has burned with very good quality.

 

Another excellent result.

We have another excellent result.

The result is good.

The result is very good.

Summary:

With the Pioneer BDR-203BK writing CD-R/RW at a maximum speed of only 32x/24x, the drive is not the fastest at writing CD-R/RW discs. However, the writing quality is excellent in most cases.

 

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The specifications of this drive tell us that it should write DVD±R at 16x and DVD+RW/-RW at 8x/6x. In this part, we will measure the writing times for various types of DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW discs. We will also focus on write quality and media compatibility.

Write quality:

Disc Quality Scanning - PI/PO:

DVDs use an error detection and correction system (ECC) which is usually transparent to the end-user, but we can get an idea of the "quality" of a disc by performing Disc Quality Scanning, which shows how many errors the drive is detecting and correcting behind the scenes.

There are two layers or stages of error detection and correction on all DVD media; these are called Parity Inner (PI) and Parity Outer (PO). Data is arranged in ECC blocks containing rows and columns of user data with additional columns of PI error correction and rows of PO error correction.

An ECC block contains 32 KByte of user data with some added control data, scrambled and arranged in 192 rows and 172 columns with an additional 10 columns of PI error correction and 16 rows of PO error correction.

The Parity Inner stage is performed first, and up to 5 bytes in a row can be corrected. Any row with one or more errors is counted as a Parity Inner Error (PIE). Any row with more than 5 errors is considered un-correctable and is counted as a Parity Inner Failure (PIF).

The Parity Outer stage is performed next and will detect and attempt to correct any errors that are still left after the PI stage. Any column that has errors is counted as a Parity Outer Error (POE), and any column that has un-correctable errors is counted as a Parity Outer Failure (POF). If a POF occurs the drive can sometimes re-read the problematic spot and correct the problem; this happens only during normal reading and not during scanning, however.

Disc Quality scanning is influenced by the drive performing the test, and that's why different drives report different results and even the same drive will report (slightly) different results when scanning the same disc again. Please note that PI/PO and Jitter scans only test some aspects of disc quality and that other important aspects are not revealed.

But what is a good scan? That is a discussion that we don’t think will end soon, as different drives report different amounts of errors, some players are more picky about media than others, and so on. But as a comparison we present you with scans from two pressed DVD discs:

The scan above shows the results from a pressed, Single Layer DVD-Video disc (Goldeneye).

The above scan shows the result from a pressed Double Layer DVD-Video disc (The Green Mile).

The Lite-On DVD burners used in this review report errors as follows:

• PIE per 8 ECC blocks (rows with 1 or more bytes in error)
• PIF per 1 ECC block (rows with 6 or more bytes in error)

We want to see as low error numbers as possible.
PIE per 8 ECC blocks should be no higher than 280.
PIF per 1 ECC block should be no higher than 4.

Both the pressed DVD-discs above are well within the standards if we ignore the single PIF spike in the DL scan.

If you want to look at the standards for yourself, download the ECMA 267 Standard for DVD-ROM, the ECMA 337 Standard for DVD+R/RW and the ECMA 338 Standard for DVD-R/RW at http://www.ecma-international.org.

Notice that there are other aspects such as disc reflectivity, tracking errors and so on that also will affect the readability of a DVD disc – but for this we do not have measuring equipment available.

Also, another note is that we have scanned the discs at 4X speed, by lowering the speed to 2X (DVD-R/RW)/2.4X (DVD+R/RW) or 1X the amount of reported errors may drop on some discs. We scanned at 4X CLV due to lower speeds taking too much time.

To see if there is a connection between the reported amount of errors and readability of the discs we also include the reading curve from an Optiarc AD-7203A DVD-Writer which by default is able to read DVD±R media at 16x speed. A small speed reduction near the end is still accepted on good discs, but serious reading problems or reading failures is a bad sign.

Jitter:

Jitter is a very complex subject and even more difficult to explain when we start to use optical drives designed for the home market to measure jitter values.

Let’s first look at the DVD specification for pressed DVD discs (in the bold part courtesy of Pioneer Electronics).

“The DVD design target is that when the worst-case disc allowed by the specification, considering the economics of production, is played using the worst-case pickup that can be produced in volume economically, the byte error rate after error correction will still be 1 x 10-^-20, which is good enough to be acceptable for computer applications.

Since the above target is for "after error correction," the error correction capability must be calculated. Considering the trade-off between error correction capability and the overhead of the added redundancy, the DVD format was set to one ECC block per 32 KB. This requires a byte error rate before correction of 1 x 10^-2.
In order to achieve good economy on both the part of the discs and the playback mechanisms. The current disc tilt specification was determined as a result of the efforts on both sides.

 

What is Jitter?

In basic terms, we could say jitter is a product of “pit and land distortion” In other words, the drive reading the disc has to compensate by means of a “tilt servo” which constantly tries to move and refocus the PUH lens for optimum tracking and tries to compensate for the imperfections of pits and lands on the pressed or recordable media. This is further compounded by the hardware used for recording and playback. Not only is the record and replay process limited by the resolution of the optical pickup, it is also horribly non-linear. In addition, the playback of the pits is subject to non-linear crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track, and also from pits in nearby tracks.

The things that causes jitter divide into three main types.

• Variation in pit length and width.
• Crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track.
• Crosstalk from pits in adjacent tracks.

 

Variation in pit length and width.

The recorded pits themselves are not perfectly accurate. Anything which causes variations in the sizes of the pits will produce jitter. A prime culprit of this is sudden variations in laser power (laser noise). If laser power varies, then the laser beam itself changes and will vary in intensity and possibly focus. This will cause the pit length and width to also vary and we now have jitter.

Crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track.

If the pits are not totally accurate, then the laser beam spot may overrun a pit and gather data from the adjacent pit in the same track, or if the “land” is to short, then the laser beam spot can be influenced by the adjacent pit and this is called inter-symbol interference. Inter-symbol interference is worse at low recording velocities, because the pits are shorter and closer together. And it is the cause of "deviation" of the pit lengths.

Crosstalk from pits in adjacent tracks.

Crosstalk between pits in adjacent tracks is caused by the laser beam spot being larger than the width of the track. It is a largely random contribution and is worse at lower recorded velocities, because the highest frequency components of the readout signal in the wanted track, with which the crosstalk is competing, are weaker.

Some other factors to consider

There are many aspects to consider when we add Recordable DVD media into the mix. We are now dealing with an organic dye, which is inherently unstable. We must also consider the equipment we are using to measure jitter is aimed at the home market. So we must also take into account variations between drives that we are unable to calibrate for such tests.

Now let’s look at some of the hardware limitations of the drives we are using to measure jitter.

If there is no tilt, then the jitter value includes components from light source noise, circuit noise, disc noise, standard interference between symbols (inter -symbol interference), and some small amount of crosstalk from the neighbouring tracks.

Next we consider manufacturing variation in the circuitry.
Variation due to the circuitry have noise-like characteristics, and increase the minimum jitter level, but are thought to have a very small effect on tilt margin. Factors such as offset in the servo circuit, however, both increase the jitter level and decrease tilt margin.

How we will measure jitter.

We will be using a Lite-On DVD writer to conduct these tests along with Nero CD-Speed at 4x scanning speed. In the screen shot below we can see a PI/PIF scan including a jitter test (the purple graph in the lower window) we carried out on a single layer DVD+R media.

Now, let's find a reasonable average jitter level. Experimental results indicate that 8% average value or less is a desirable figure, based on the DVD specification. That does not mean that jitter average values above 8% are bad. In fact, many optical drives will quite happily read recordable DVD media with jitter values of more than 14% average without any problems. Other drives, including standalone DVD players may begin to struggle reading discs with average jitter values above 10%. So there is a fairly wide range of acceptable values. One must test their own playback devices to see what they can cope with.

However, for the purpose of having a basic guideline we can use in our reviews, we present a rating system for average jitter values.

• Less than 8% (average) = Very good
• 8% - 9% (average) = good
• 9% - 12% (average) = average
•  Above 12% (average) = poor

Here is an easier explanation on how to read the test results

Maybe this got too technical, and you are wondering what to look for in your Nero DiscSpeed/CD-Speed Quality Scans?

Use this as a guideline for good discs:

• PI (Parity Inner): No larger areas on the disc should exceed 280 PI-8 errors, do not worry too much about high single spikes that exceed 280.
• PIF (Parity Inner Failures): No larger areas on the disc should exceed 4 PIF-1 errors, do not worry too much about high single spikes that exceed 4.
• Jitter: An average jitter value of 8% or less is considered very good. You should not worry too much if the average value is slightly above this figure.

And as always; lower is better

 

DVD+R media compatibility and write quality:

In these tests we will be using a Lite-On iHAS422 with firmware 4L11 along with CD-Speed to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7200A with firmware 1.09 along with CD-Speed for our read-back tests.

An excellent result to start off our tests.

The result is very good.

No surprises here, an excellent result from the Verbatim 8x media manufactured by Taiyo Yuden.

The result is very good.

The result is very good indeed.

The result is very good.

DVD+RW media compatibility and write quality:

We used the same test procedures as in our DVD+R tests.

Below are our obtained results.

The result is good.

Summary:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK writes DVD+R with excellent/very good quality. DVD+RW writing with our tested media was also good.

Now let’s look at DVD-R/RW performance and quality on the next page…..

 

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DVD-R media compatibility and write quality:

In these tests we will be using a Lite-On iHAS422 with firmware 4L11 along with CD-Speed to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7200A with firmware 1.09 along with CD-Speed for our read-back tests.

The result is very good.

The result is excellent.

The result is good.

PI errors are a little high throughout the disc, but PIF errors are extremely low, and the result is very good.

The result is very good.

The result is good.

DVD-RW media compatibility and write quality:

For this test we used the same testing procedures as in our DVD-R tests.

The quality of the burn is pretty good up until near the end of the disc, where  there is a sudden rise in PI/PIF errors. We tried another disc and the result was pretty much the same. The disc is readable, but quality could be better.

Summary:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK has written our DVD-R media with excellent/very good quality. DVD-RW writing quality was questionable with our tested media.

 

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DVD+R/-R Double Layer writing performance and quality:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK supports the DVD+R DL/-R DL standard for writing Double Layer/Dual Layer discs with a size around 8.5 GB at a writing speed of 8x.

For these tests we wrote an image file of a DVD-Video compilation of as near full capacity as possible with CD-Speed. We then used the Lite-On iHAS422 along with CD-Speed to test the disc’s quality; we then finally ran a read-back test on our Optiarc AD-7200A using Nero CD-Speed.

 

DVD+R DL:

Apart from the spike at the layer break, the result is very good.

DVD-R DL:

The result is good.

Summary:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK burned our test DVD±DL media with good writing quality. It was also able to burn our DL media at 8X, which is quite rare for a Blu-ray burner.

Let’s check out DVD-RAM reading and writing on the next page....

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DVD-RAM writing performance:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK is a so-called Multi drive, meaning it also supports the DVD-RAM format.

This drive is one of few drives that also supports the DVD-RAM format.  Let us look at the recording side of the disc, and as you can see it has differences from the other DVD+R/W/R9 DL and DVD-R/W discs.

We can see a very fascinating pattern of darker spots. These tick marks are "address information" ("Pre-mastered Pit Header Field") which are embedded onto the disc. This is header information in front of data sector area, and is the same format as HDD and MO.

A DVD-RAM’s disc can be formatted in the following formats:

• FAT32
• UDF 1.02
• UDF 1.50
• UDF 2.00
• UDF 2.01
• UDF 2.50

 

By formatting a DVD-RAM disc with FAT32 it will act like a removable hard drive and all writing will be done as “background processes”. Meaning you do not have to wait for it to finish, you can start or work with other applications while the DVD-RAM is working without noticing any “hangs” or CPU slowdowns.

DVD-RAM has error correction, but also has error replacement to spare sectors as a "defect management" function. This gives higher reliability than other DVD formats.

Another advantage with DVD-RAM is that the discs can be formatted/erased/written at over 100,000 times before it will/can cause/report any errors.

Now let’s burn a test disc.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK wrote our test Verbatim 5x DVD-RAM media in 11 minutes and 6 seconds.

Now let’s try and read back our test disc.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK had no problems in reading back our test DVD-RAM media using a 5x CLV reading method.

We then used CD-Speed to run a Scan Disc test using the Pioneer BDR-203BK on our burned media.

As we can see from the above screenshot, there are no errors on our disc.

Summary:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK had no problems in reading and writing our test DVD-RAM media.

Let’s head on to the next page, where we test BD-R/RE writing performance....

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An Introduction to Blu-Ray

Until recently, optical disc technologies such as DVD, DVD±R, DVD±RW and DVD-RAM relied on a red laser to read and write data, the Blu-Ray format uses a blue-violet laser, which explains the name Blu-ray.

A blue-violet laser (405nm) has a shorter wavelength than a red laser (650nm); this makes it possible to focus the laser with even greater accuracy. This will allow data to be packed more tightly, so it's possible to squeeze more data on the disc even though it's the same size as a CD/DVD. This together with the change of numerical aperture to 0.85 enables Blu-ray discs to hold 25GB/50GB.

Blu-ray drives can also be made backwards compatible with CDs and DVDs through the use of a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical pickup unit.

Now let’s take a look at the track pitch and compare them with that of DVD

As we can see in the above screenshots, the storage density of Blu-ray is much higher than DVD. The Blu-ray laser beam spot is also much narrower than that of DVD.

Blu-Ray Error specification:

In the above table we present some of the specifications for reported errors on Blu-ray media. At present we have no equipment or software available for measuring these errors.

BD-R writing tests

The specifications of the Pioneer BDR-203BK state that the drive is able to write BD-R at 8x. Let us find out how the drive really performs.

BD-R 25GB

For this test we used Nero Disc Speed to create our test disc.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK burned our test BD-R media from Verbatim in 14 minutes and 49 seconds.

Now let’s see if the Pioneer BDR-203BK can read back our test disc.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK had no problems in reading back our test disc. Now let’s try a Nero DiscSpeed Scandisc test.

As we can see, there are no errors on our test disc.

BD-R 50GB

For our next test, we wrote a 50GB BD-R disc with Nero Burning ROM.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK burned our test BD-R 50GB DL media from TDK at 8x writing speed in 32 minutes and 31 seconds.

Now let’s see if the Pioneer BDR-203BK can read back our test disc.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK had no problems in reading back our test disc. Now let’s try a Nero CD-Speed Scandisc test.

As we can see, there are no errors on our test disc.

BD-RE:

The specifications of the Pioneer BDR-203BK state that the drive is able to write BD-RE discs at 2x. Let us find out how the drive really performs.

BD-RE 25GB

The Pioneer BDR-203BK burned our test BD-RE media from Verbatim in 45 minutes and 34 seconds.

Now let’s see if the Pioneer BDR-203BK can read back our test disc.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK had no problems in reading back our test disc. Now let’s try a Nero CD-Speed Scandisc test.

As we can see, there are no errors on our test disc.

BD-RE 50GB

For our next test, we wrote a 50GB BD-RE disc with Nero Burning ROM.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK burned our test BD-RE 50GB media from TDK in 1 hour, 27 minutes and 53 seconds.

Now let’s see if the Pioneer BDR-203BK can read back our test disc.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK had no problems in reading back our test disc. Now let’s try a Nero CD-Speed Scandisc test.

As we can see, there are no errors on our test disc.

Summary:

The Pioneer BDR-203BK burned all our test Blu-ray recordable test discs at the fastest speed currently possible, BD-R 8x and BD-RE 2x and done so without any problems. The Pioneer BDR-203BK also had no problems in reading back our test discs.

Let’s round off this review with the Authors page, with some real world and advanced tests....

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Introduction:

On this page, the author of the review has the freedom to run tests that she/he thinks will enhance the review. These tests are unlike our standard tests, which we try to keep consistent throughout the whole review team, so that our reviews are as consistent as possible. This page gives the reviewer the opportunity to show some advanced and real world tests that other review team members may not be able to run.

Real World tests:

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Real world tests are designed to simulate what normal users might use their drives for in everyday use. For example, writing discs with a burning application.

Audio Extraction:

For this test we used EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to test the drive’s Audio extraction performance. As we can see from the screenshot below, the drive supports accurate stream.

Below is the results produced by EAC:

Burst mode

Secure mode

The Pioneer BDR-203BK performed well in burst mode, but was much slower in secure mode.

Nero Burning Rom:

In the following tests, we will burn discs from the main media groups with Nero Burning Rom
 

CD-R:

For our data writing tests, we simply set up a new compilation of 703MB using Nero Burning ROM software. Writing method used is DAO (Disc At Once), and the disc is set up as a non-multisession disc with “finalize disc” enabled. The screenshot below shows how long it takes to write a disc at the highest speed. (32x)

The Pioneer BDR-203BK burned our test CD-R at 32x in 4 minutes and 12 seconds.

Let’s compare with other drives in our table below. Note, the other drives in our table are DVD burners, therefore, it is perhaps not fair to directly compare them.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was the slowest drive when writing our test CD-R. This was to be expected as the drive is primarily a Blu-ray writer.

DVD R:

In this test we will measure the time for writing to DVD R discs. We used Nero Burning Rom to burn an ISO compilation containing 4483MB of data. We used the Disc-At-Once write method.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK burned our test DVD R at 16x in 5 minutes and 51 seconds.

Let’s compare with other drives in our table below. Please note, that the Pioneer BDR-203BK is primarily a Blu-ray writer.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was the slowest drive when writing our test DVD R media. But again we must take into consideration, that the Pioneer BDR-230BK is a Blu-ray writer, even then, it held its own against our DVD burners.

DVD DL:

In this test we will measure the time for writing to DVD R DL discs. We used Nero Burning Rom to burn an ISO DVD-Video compilation containing 8103MB of data. We used the Disc-At-Once write method.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK burned our test DVD R DL at 8x in 15 minutes and 50 seconds.

Let’s compare with other drives in our table below. Once again, we note that the Pioneer BDR-203BK is primarily a Blu-ray burner.

Even though the Pioneer BDR-203BK is a Blu-ray drive, it was about average when writing our test DVD+R DL media. Excellent speed from a Blu-ray drive.

BD-R 50GB

For this test we compiled a HD video in Nero Vision which filled the disc to near full capacity, and then burned the resulting compilation with Nero Burning ROM.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK burned our 50GB BD-R media at 8x in 32 minutes and 31 seconds.

Let's compare with some other Blu-ray burners below.

We don't yet have much data for comparison purposes, but we can see that the Pioneer BDR-203BK wrote our BD-R 50GB the fastest.

BD-RE 50GB

For this test we compiled a HD video in Nero Vision which filled the disc to near full capacity, and then burned the resulting compilation with Nero Burning ROM.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK burned our test disc in 87 minutes and 53 seconds.

Let's compare with some other Blu-ray burners below.

We don't yet have much data for comparison purposes, but we can see that the Pioneer BDR-203BK wrote our BD-RE 50GB media the fastest.

Standalone DVD-Player compatibility test:

We only have 3 standalone DVD-Players available and 1 standalone DVD-RAM DVD-R recorder to test the DVD+R DL media (Book Type: DVD-ROM) and the DVD-R DL media (Book Type: DVD-R):      

• Panasonic DVD-RV32
• Panasonic SA-HT520
• Proline DVDP350
• Panasonic DMR-E50 recorder

Compatibility results, DVD Video:

All our DVD Standalone devices played the DVD+R DL media burned by the Pioneer BDR-203BK without any problems.

Only one DVD Standalone device would play the Pioneer BDR-203BK burned DVD-R DL media without any problems.

We would like to mention, that the compatibility issue with standalone DVD Players/Recorders and the DVD-R DL media format is caused by incompatibilities with the standalone devices used in this review, and not the Pioneer BDR-203BK or media format used.

Standalone Blu-ray Player compatibility test:

We decided to check that our resulting Blu-ray discs could play on a Blu-ray player. For this test, we used a Sony PS3.

Verbatim BD-R 50GB

No problems

Verbatim BD-R 50GB

No problems

CSS Encrypted DVD-Video ripping tests:

Most modern DVD burners don’t have Video riplock and in most cases will read a pressed DVD-Video SL disc at 16x speed. However, some drives use a CSS riplock when it comes to extracting data from the disc. If you attempt to rip a pressed DVD-Video with CSS encryption to your hard drive, then the ripping speed may be locked at a much lower speed than 16x.

To test this feature, we needed a reference from a drive that we know does not employ CSS riplock. We choose the Optiarc AD-7203A as a reference drive for this purpose and ripped a SL and DL pressed DVD-Video to our hard drive using DVDFab Platinum (full disc option).

We should point out, that ripping and compressing a DL DVD-Video disc to DVD 5 format is quite CPU intensive. The more power your system has, the less likely your system power will affect the results. The PC used in this review is equipped with a fast Intel Quad Core processor and fast hard drives. We checked to make sure our review PC was not having an impact on the results.

Below we can see our reference results.

SL CSS encrypted DVD Video disc “Goldeneye” (Optiarc AD-7203A reference result)

Time taken = 6m:12s

DL CSS encrypted DVD Video disc “The Green Mile” (Optiarc AD-7203A reference result)

Time taken = 12m:43s

 

Now let’s test the Pioneer BDR-203BK using the same testing procedures.

SL CSS encrypted DVD-Video (Goldeneye):

The Pioneer BDR-203BK is not CSS riplocked and ripped our test DVD-Video SL disc in 6 minutes and 1 second.

DL CSS encrypted DVD-Video (The Green Mile):

The Pioneer BDR-203BKis not CSS riplocked and ripped our test DVD-Video DL disc in 11 minutes and 54 seconds.

To compare with other drives, we present the table below.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was fast when ripping our tested DVD-Video media. In fact, the Pioneer BDR-203BK was faster than many DVD burners.

Advanced tests:

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To round off this review, we will run some advanced tests on the Pioneer BDR-203BK. These tests are: “Sheep Test”, and some special disc tests.

 

For this test, we will use the Sheep tests made by Alexander Noé. Why is it called sheep test? That’s because the logo of the first 1 to 1 copy program called CloneCD is a sheep. When looking at supported writers, you will notice that the feature list has sheep to indicate if a feature is supported or not. In this case we are interested in the writer’s ability to backup/write weak sectors. Also called: “Correct EFM encoding of regular bit-patterns”.

• No sheep: Can’t backup any safedisc 2 versions without the help of software tricks
• 1 Sheep: Can backup safedisc 2 up to version 2.4x without software tricks
• 2 Sheep: Can backup safedisc 2, including version 2.5x
• 3 Sheep: Can write all possible weak sectors, few if any writers could do this.

One of our forum moderators Womble; has written a guide concerning the “Sheep Test” that can be found here.

In the screenshot below taken from CloneCD, we see the Pioneer BDR-203BK supports everything.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK supports DAO-RAW96 recording mode, which basically means, it can write uncorrected data and sub-channel data.

Sheep 2.90

Sheep 3

As we can see from the results, the Pioneer BDR-203BK is a two sheep burner.

Overburning CD-R:

We tested the Pioneer BDR-203BK to see if it could overburn CD-R media. The results are below.

700MB (80 minute) over-burn test:

As we can see, the Pioneer BDR-203BK failed to overburn our test CD-R media, and the resulting disc was not readable.

MINI DVD discs:

In this section we are going to test if the Pioneer BDR-203BK is capable of writing and reading mini DVD-RW discs with a capacity of 30 minutes/1.46 GB.

The Memorex media is made by CMC Magnetics.  Thanks to Memorex Europe for sending us this media.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK had no problems in writing our test mini DVD-RW disc. Now let’s check if the Pioneer BDR-203BK can also read back our test disc.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK read back our test mini DVD-RW disc without any problems.

This concludes our Pioneer BDR-203BK review. To read the conclusion, click on the link below.

 

Positive:

• Excellent and fast Blu-ray burning performance at 8x max.
• Excellent and fast Blu-ray reading performance at 8x max.
• Very good DVD burning performance.
• Excellent DVD±R DL writing performance for a Blu-ray burner.
• Excellent/very good DVD±R writing quality.
• Excellent/very good CD-R/RW writing quality.
• Supports DVD-RAM read and write at 5x.
• Supports BitSetting (BookType DVD-ROM) on DVD+R DL.
• Very good DVD-Video ripping performance.
• Excellent build quality.
• Good software package.
• Near silent operation when playing back BD and DVD movies.

 

Negative:

• Slow reading and writing of CD-R media by today’s standards
• Doesn’t support BitSetting for DVD+R/RW
• DVD-RW writing quality on our tested media could be improved.

Conclusion:

 

Let us summarise the most important positive and negative points below:

The main positive points:

 

The Pioneer BDR-203BK performed extremely well in our tests. BD-R writing performance was excellent and the fastest Blu-ray drive we have yet tested. BD-RE writing performance was also very good. Reading performance with BD media was also very strong, offering the fastest reading speeds and performance currently available.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK was able to burn all our tested CD-R/RW media with excellent/very good quality.

DVD±R/RW writing quality was also of a very high standard and on most media very good/excellent.

DVD-R DL writing quality was good with our tested media and bitsetting was also supported on DVD+R DL media with BookType set to DVD-ROM. DVD±R DL writing performance was also excellent, considering the Pioneer BDR-203BK is a Blu-ray burner.

The CyberLink BD Solution software bundle should provide a good starting point for owners of the Pioneer BDR-203BK for playing and creating BD content. Blu-ray movie playback via PowerDVD using an HDCP compliant screen was excellent.

The Pioneer BDR-203BK’s build quality is also excellent. The drive has a solid feel and is fairly heavy. The eject tray has a nice firm feel to it. The drive is also quiet and almost completely silent when playing back Blu-ray or DVD movies.

DVD-Video ripping performance was also of a very high standard, in fact it beat quite a few of the dedicated DVD burners in our tests.

The main negative points:

There are not many negative things to say about the Pioneer BDR-203BK. Our only real gripe is CD performance. The drive is slow in both reading and writing to CD recordable media. But we would like to add that the Pioneer BDR-203BK is primarily a Blu-ray burner.

Writing quality on our tested DVD-RW media was not of a high standard, and we hope this can be improved with a future firmware update.

To sum up, this is what we would say:

“The Pioneer BDR-203BK is a very strong performer, and has very few weak points. It's another very good drive from Pioneer”.

You may comment on this review below or in this forum thread.

The performance and usability of the Pioneer BDR-203BK Blu-ray drive was so good, that we decided to award the drive our CD Freaks “Editor’s choice” award.

 

Thanks to:

 

	SVP Communication – The United Kingdom for providing the media used in this review.
	Medea International – United Kingdom for providing the media used in this review.

	Verbatim - United Kingdom for providing the media used in this review.
	Daxon Technology Inc – Taiwan for providing the BenQ media used in this review.
	Pleomax for providing the media used in this review.
	Ricoh Europe – For providing the media used in this review.