Wondering if anyone knows if/where I can get the Pioneer DVD*RW drive
newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe … 157&depa=0
for a reasonable price in the Taipei area. The U.S. price is under US$100, roughly NTD$3400.
The “DVD+R DL” format means it can write dual-layer 9GB media, correct?
Haven’t seen the 108, but just purchased and installed a 107D in my Quicksilver tower and it works flawlessly. the price for NT3,000 (Can Kun). That said, $100 or less for the newer model might be a bit optimistic…
Anandtech gives it a glowing review. I haven’t gone through in detail, but I’m surprised since the drive looks like it gave them some errors during testing. But maybe that’s normal in the rapidly-evolving DVD recorder world. . . .
The Pioneer 108/A08 has been out in Taiwan since mid-Aug according to DigiTimes (a local professional IT news service). I wouldn’t expect it to be going as cheap as US prices though. You’ll probably be just as happy with the older 107/A07 drive for the next year or so though. Dual Layer media goes for US$10-15 each right now and is in VERY short supply. 12-16X media is also pretty scarce. 4X is very mature, and 8X media is just maturing since about May/June timeframe. It’s taking about 6-9 months between the release of new drive speeds and when the media in that speed iactually becomes widely available and stable. For now I would recommend going for 8X drives and 4X and 8X media.
As for errors referenced in the Anandtech review, all media has some amount of error rate. The question is whether it is acceptable enough to achieve good compatibility. Bad error rates or failed burns are more often due to bad media than a bad drive. I wrote up some info on this which you can find here: jameslick.com/dvd/
that drive is selling for $3000NT in Canada, so I think getting the same price shouldn’t be to tough in Taipei, try the Gonhua computer Market, maybe get some blank DVDs thrown in if they won’t matchthe $3000NT price.
I plan on buying this drive in a few weeeks, I’ll post if I am unable to get it at this price…of not lower.
Bought the 107B (the black colored version) a few weeks ago. There is a firmware update to dual layer I believe on Pioneer’s site. Around NT$3000 at 3C in Guanghua.