Pioneer latest this month will release in Japan the "DVR-S17J" series of 20x DVD burners, a new series of drives designed to deliver ore accurate strengthens burning and reproduction of audio CDs.
Pioneer has designed the new drives to deliver more efficient, stabile and accurate burning of of CDs and DVDs. The drives feature a newly developed actuator for the focus and tracking servo systems, a more stable and energy efficient spindle motor.
Pioneer's drive also also features a dustproof structure that keeps dust away from the internal of the drive's case, as well as Pioneer's Disc-Resonance Stabiliser technology. This controls the airflow generated by disc rotation in order to minimize disc warping, which can occur when media rotates at high speed. In addition, the airflow within the unit has been improved, enabling air to easily circulate around the internal chassis, reducing noise caused by the build-up of air. Finally, the drive's design prevents the escape of air, especially through the front bezel, that can create significant amounts of background noise.
Pioneer has also implemented its PowerRead and PureRead 2 functions in the new drive.
There is a difference between how AV and PC handle discs that are difficult to read. In a standard PC environment, DVD-Video is treated as 1 type of data; therefore, if a section is deemed unreadable, playback will stop. With PowerRead, the user-experience is similar to the AV side, making it possible to play the remainder of the disc. Note that with PowerRead, unreadable DVD or Blu-ray disc contents remain unreadable. PowerRead skips to the next readable address. PowerRead can be used for DVD media that have been recorded in BDAV and DVD video/VR formats.
In addition, the drive features the "PURE READ 2" function, to compensate the digital noise introduced when a scratched or dusty audio CD is reproduced. The idea behind PURE READ is to try and correct damaged sectors, which are read from the Audio-CD. The feature re-reads damaged sectors to see if it can recover them. When these damaged sectors are read in a normal scenario, the sector may well be read without any serious error, but sometimes pops or crackles can be heard in the final ripped file. When a sector that is difficult to read is detected, the laser tries to re-read the damaged sector. Not just re-reading the sector, but the drive will actually adjust its read parameters (I.E. higher or lower laser power and the angle of the laser beam are adjusted) to try and get the best possible read-back from that damaged sector. An algorithm calculates the "best" or "average" result it achieves, and that information (I.E. the best-possible result) is then used as part of the final file.
The specidication listing also includes support for LabelFlash disc labeling technology. The maximum supported burnng speeds inlcude 20x for DVD±R, 12x for DVD±R DL/-RAM, 8x for DVD+RW, 6x for DVD-RW, 40x for CD-R and 32x for and CD-RW. The maximum reading speeds are 16x for DVD±R/-ROM, 13x for DVD±RW, 12x for DVD±R DL/-ROM DL/-RAM, 40x for CD-R/ROM and 32x for CD-RW.
The retail package of the SATA drives inlcude "PowerDVD v8", "PowerProducer v5", "PowerDirector v8" and "Power2Go v6 for Pure Read" software by CyberLink.
Pioneer will release three versions of the drive in Japan this month, with white (DVR-S17J-W), black (DVR-S17J-BK) and silver (DVR-S17J-SV) face plates. Each drive is expected to retail in Japan for about JPY 9,000 ($100).