Pioneer DVR-A06

Who says you can't teach an old drive new tricks? Pioneer, the originator and staunchest supporter of the DVD-R/RW standard, has done just that, adding DVD+R/RW writing to its latest DVD-rewritable drive, the DVR-A06. The drive isn't nearly as fast a performer as Sony's similarly priced DRU-510A, however; it even lagged behind its DVR-A05 predecessor in packet-writing tests, apparently because of Pioneer's switch from VOB's InstantWrite packet-writing software to Software Architect's WriteDVD. Pioneer also loses points for omitting a headphone jack and a volume control from the front panel. In the end, while the DVR-A05 remains an Editors' Choice because of its extremely low street price, we can't think of any reason to choose the DVR-A06 over Sony's best-in-class DRU-510A.

Installing the DVR-A06, like setting up any internal drive, is a piece of cake--if you know what you're doing. Otherwise, cook dinner for the techie in your life. The multilingual setup guide provides the basic facts and nothing more. Pioneer includes the bare essentials: an analog drive-to-sound-card audio cable and mounting screws. There's no IDE cable, but the odds are pretty good that you already have one inside your PC. The DVR-A06 is compatible with all Microsoft operating systems, from Windows 98 SE onward, but there's no Mac support. The DVR-A06 also doesn't support Mount Rainier (Philips's CD-RW-as-floppy initiative).

We had problems installing the DVR-A06's software bundle; the install routine reported a conflict between the DVR-A06's packet-writing software and a previously installed packet-writing application that had since been removed. Admittedly, this wouldn't have happened on a clean system, but that's no excuse for the install routine to quit unceremoniously and force us to install all the packages separately.