I just read the DVD writer roundup at Anandtech.com and it seems that the Pioneer DVR-109 produces a massive amount of errors when writing to Verbatim 16X DVD+R media (MCC004). I am concerned because I use this media quite a lot for archival purposes. Should I be worried at all?
Personally I haven’t seemed to have encountered any problems with this media but am worried about the long term effects of using the verbatim discs.
Why don’t you test your burns then?
Would be the easiest way to be sure the media/content is OK. 
Hey, I’m kind of a newbie to this. Could you briefly explain how I could test? Would this be using a program?
OK, for some nice tests/scans check out the “scan” sticky in this thread.
If you have an LiteOn drive, preferably a burner, you can use KProbe for testing.
If not, you could use DVDInfoPro but for Pioneer burners Nero CD/DVD Speed is the first choice.
Happy scanning!
“If not, you could use DVDInfoPro but for Pioneer burners Nero CD/DVD Speed is the first choice.”
Ahem… Chef, CD/DVD speed is NOT compatible with Pioneer drives 
It needs a reg hack to even accept to scan with Pioneer drives, and even so, the PIE reports are inaccurate and very erratic. PIF reports seems accurate, though.
Unless you tell me that there is a new version compatible with Pioneer drives? This would be good news! 
Francksoy - that is the EXACT same problem i am having! 
i bought this 109BK burner last week, and i haven’t even offically used it / backed up my data yet - cause i can’t test with any scan software , therefore i don’t trust any of the media i have at home!
What programs work with a pioneer 109BK ? kProbe wouldn’t work for me, nor would nero’s cd/dvd speed.
"What programs work with a pioneer 109BK "
DVDInfopro only.
I’m not a big fan of this program, but it’s the only one which works well with the Pioneer.
To have DVDInfopro reports with the 109 that are consistent with other scanning utilities on other drives:
.Use ASPI (4.60 or Nero’s own Aspi) instead of SPTI for XP
.Use “faster” scanning to get rid of the erratic spikes.
PI should be under 280, PO under 32 (and NOT 280 as other users report - see enclosed DVDInfopro help files), good discs give me PI < 60 and PO < 10.
With the same discs, the 109 reports more PI errors than other drives I own (Benq, LiteOn), so PI around 30 or less is actually excellent.
Good luck 
Oh and there is at least one thing you can do with CD/DVD Speed on the Pioneer, it’s a transfert rate test.
DVDInfopro also has this test, but don’t ask me why, I prefer to use CD-DVD Speed instead. No good reason.
Whatever. It’s as important to perform this test as it is to test for PI/PO errors, because the Pioneer drives don’t report jitter. So with some discs that have a tendancy to wobble (CAUGH ridisc xtremeCAUGH) you may actually get a good PI/PO scan and a mediocre transfert rate…
ooops I think it’s starting to be off-topic :o
One more thing, what does a high error rate actually mean? I have this one disc, that I burnt at 4X on my 109, and it seems to have a large amount of errors but it reads back fine. I used DVDinfopro to do the test.
Heres a picture of my DVDinfopro scan.
“One more thing, what does a high error rate actually mean”
Please read OC-Freak’s guide to interpreting PI/PO errors
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=80545
Also read the help files included with DVDInfopro.
As to your scan, it’s strange to have such results with Verbatim discs. Never tested those +R as yet on the 109, but the -R 16x version (MCC03RG20) gives me much better results than this. Verbatims are supposed to be first class media.
The total PO count is very high indeed (19644!! My worst Verbs never give more than 600/800 total PO count!), and these peaks at the end of the disk is what I get only with 2nd class media. Very strange.
Up to this point (about 3.8GB) it’s a fine scan.
Could be heat, though, when it’s very hot here my scans get mad at the end of the discs…? Is your PC well ventilated?
WAIT! 
You mention you burnt these @4x??? Hey, these 16x discs surely don’t like that! Try burning one @8X minimum, and re-scan… why don’t you burn them @16X?
Thanks for the link, although I am more interested to know what the real world effect would be of a high error rate. Even with that last disc I showed you, I can still read from the disc fine, and it reads fine in other DVD drives too. Does this mean the high error rate does not matter in this case?
Also, I have burned these discs at 16X although there seem to be higher error rates. The best I have done so far is 8X with this media, the scan below is at 8X.
That’s a very good scan - much less alarming than the former one.
Would be easier to read the scan if you choose “vertical” instead of “line”, because of the peaks: when “vertical” is selected, it’s easier to see if it’s a single spike (unimportant) or an area.
As to the “the real world effect”, from diverse sources PIE/PO/PIF errors tend to get higher with time. Thus the less errors, the more lifetime.
Now what’s the limit for the media to still be readable, it depends on many other factors… jitter, reflectivity, reader’s ability…
As I told you, another test to run is the transfert rate test.
You want to know more? Read around! I can’t answer all of your questions, and this forum is full of information! 
Cheers
Thanks for all your help. One more thing, I did exactly the same scan with one of my brand new DVD movies that I bought, this is the first time I’ve used it actually. The movie is dual layer. The scan came out quite similar to the scans I showed before, except about double the amount of errors, since it is dual layer.
Is this normal? It seems this way with most of my DVD movies too. Could this possibly be a problem with my writer’s ability to scan for errors?
Yep, you got me. Sorry for the confusion, the Pioneer burners are not really useful for making quality scans…
Jeffrey wrote:
“Could this possibly be a problem with my writer’s ability to scan for errors?”
Chef wrote:
“the Pioneer burners are not really useful for making quality scans.”
Franck writes : Chef answers your question and he’s perfectly right
Pioneer burners are not very good scanners. As I mentioned in a former post, PIE errors reported are higher than on other drives, and the scans are a little erratic sometimes (sudden single spikes up to 900/100 PIE on perfect media). The 109 also seems more sensitive to heat than other drives and give me erratic scans when it’s hot from long use.
Sometimes I get strangely high PIE errors on good media, and if I just recycle the tray and rescan, the PIE max errors are half what they were before recycling the tray!! 
With the 109 and DVDInfopro, you may COMPARE different burns/medias but without an other method/drive to compare the results, it’s difficult to know exactly how to interpret these results.
I also have a Benq 1620 and scan my discs with it and CD/DVDSpeed, so I have compared many 109/DVDInfopro results and Benq/CDSpeed ones.
It’s the result of these comparisons (and consulting many Kprobe scans on this forum performed on same medias as mine burnt with the 109) that allowed me to state that when you do 109/DVDinfopro scans, PIE max about 50/60 and PO max about 10/12 is excellent. That should be your goal when selecting very high quality media. But you can live with PIE < 100 and PO <20, this would still be honorable results.
BUT still perform a tranfert rate test! PIE/PO/PIF scanning doesn’t tell everything about a disc quality/readability!!
My very best discs (TYG02, old stock Ritek G04, MCC03RG20 Verbatims, MIJ MXLRG03 Maxells) burned and scanned on the 109 read in DVDInfopro: PIE max about 20, average about 10, PO max about 8, average about 5.
I’m too lazy today to make a search on my other PC to post some scans - sorry 
Now to the total errors count, it varies so much between scans (even made with the very same disc!!) that I stopped looking at it. LOL 
It’s about time Pioneer did two things when it comes to their burners…
I bet their sales are going down because of the lack of these features!
Their plasma tv’s simply rock though.
Pioneer DVR-109 drives automatically bitset all DVR+R DL media. The Buffalo variant also bitsets DVR+R discs.
- Support scanning
It does support scanning… Just not very good at it.
LasVegas
When i referred to bitsetting I meant a universal bitsetting across all the plus formats. I know the Buffalo variant does but the Pioneer brand is more widely available.
It doesn’t support PI and PIF scanning out of the box. I read it needs a hack and even then, as you say, it’s not worth it for the results it gives.
