Pioneer DVD Burners: MIA?

DaveLessnau · Post by **DaveLessnau** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 5:26 pm

I'm having a devil of a time finding a Pioneer DVD burner. From what I've read here, Pioneer burners tend to be amongst the quietest. I've got the Pioneer DVR-216DBK in one machine and am very happy with it. That model seems to have disappeared and been replaced with the DVR-217DBK. But, finding someone with it in stock is like finding hen's teeth (heck, it doesn't even show up on Pioneer's own site:

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/ ... uterDrives

Any idea what's happening? Is there some kind of shake-out in the industry going on?

tehfire · Post by **tehfire** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 8:32 pm

I remember reading about a year ago that pioneer was exiting the odd business. I never followed up on it, but maybe they have discontinued making drives

oldabelincoln · Post by **oldabelincoln** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:55 pm

Try Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827129038

They got out of the retail plasma TV set market after producing what most reviewers call the best TV yet.

I've had / have 3 or 4 generations of their DVD burners. They all produce great burns until one day they start producing bad burns or outright die, a behavior that I've seen with other brands, and speculate that it may be dust buildup from negative case pressure pulling air through the DVD drive case.

At under $30 a pop, I just keep a few spares around, and check every burn.

DaveLessnau · Post by **DaveLessnau** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 4:21 am

oldabelincoln wrote:Try Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827129038

I've had that very page bookmarked for months. The product is marked as "Deactivated." Now, I don't know if that's a function of Pioneer products disappearing from the marketplace or if it's something to do with Newegg (if you do a search on Newegg for DVD Burners and filter it by SATA, you get 17 results -- but, all but 5 of them (1 LG, 3 Sony, 1 Pioneer (w/ Qflix)) are Out of Stock). I usually buy from Newegg, but even my secondary sources are coming up empty on this. I've found a few places that I've never used that supposedly have it. But, I'm wondering if I should just wait and see if Newegg gets it (or something similar) back.

Shamgar · Post by **Shamgar** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 6:28 am

DaveLessnau wrote:I've got the Pioneer DVR-216DBK in one machine and am very happy with it. That model seems to have disappeared and been replaced with the DVR-217DBK.

I also have the 216BK. It handles discs and noise quite well until you put an unbalanced or dodgy disc in there. I thought of about buying some spare drives but didn't bother with it. I've seen in some places that they have a 218 model out. From what I read, although the 216 was an excellent drive for a superb price, it did suffer from some compatibility and burning issues. So 217 was released, and maybe that had problems also, now there is 218?

Some CD/DVD enthusiasts adopt the method of having two separate optical drives in their systems, each compensating for the other one's apparent weaknesses. Something else to consider is Pioneer's own OEM DVD-R drives (not the rebadged ASUS ones) don't have LightScribe. So if you want that feature, you need to get another drive that has it onboard.

oldabelincoln · Post by **oldabelincoln** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 4:11 pm

DaveLessnau wrote:I've had that very page bookmarked for months. The product is marked as "Deactivated."

Whoops! I missed that important point.

Try Central Computer, a small chain of stores in San Francisco and here in Silicon Valley, specializing in ASUS products. I'm local, and I buy there over the counter, and thus can't comment about their mail order abilities. For what it's worth, they've been around a long time, and run clean, well stocked stores, and have always dealt with me in a completely reputable manner. I used to use the Santa Clara store, and now use the Sunnyvale store. Clerks are generally knowledgeable.

I searched their site for "Pioneer DVD", and they claim to have 216 and 217 drives. http://www.centralcomputers.com/
I'd call first.

They regularly have Pioneer drives on sale under $30, just not at the moment.

BTW, the system in your sig inspired me to update my own sig with my current system, which is somewhat similar. Thanks for the motivation...

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 4:45 am

Please be advised that the new Pioneer models DVR-*18 (e.g. DVR-218) and such use a different chipset (Mediatek) and the jury is out on whether the drive's acoustic performance is on par with earlier NEC chipset based drives.

BTW, at their max speed at 16x and above (up to 24x now) none of these are anywhere near quiet. Fortunately at least the 216/217 models ought to react to Pioneer's throttle speed down commands.

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 5:07 am

Pioneer 118/218 is a collaboration product between Pioneer and QSIâ€”Quanta Storage Inc.. Realistically speaking, it has nothing to do with Pioneer's bloodline like 215/216/217.

colin2 · Post by **colin2** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 10:17 am

I got a DVR-216DBK via Amazon last week. From something called BuyDirect Corporation. Looks like it's still in stock.

DaveLessnau · Post by **DaveLessnau** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 1:14 pm

colin2 wrote:I got a DVR-216DBK via Amazon last week. From something called BuyDirect Corporation. Looks like it's still in stock.

Interesting. I'd been looking at Amazon, too. But, I must have missed that. I'll look again.

EDIT: Well, since I already have 1 DVR-216DBK, I feel more comfortable with another one instead of going the DVR-217 (or even -218) route. So, even though I'd never heard of that BuyDirect Corporation, I ordered a couple. We'll see how it goes.

It's still odd about the dearth of Pioneers. The most comments I found on the topic was over at:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/f87/

(which is the Pioneer sub-forum for their DVD forum). But, even there, it was mostly rumor. While there, I found this thread:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/f87/pioneer-dv ... ng-279229/

From something mentioned in that thread, I found this Reuter's article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssCons ... 3720090409

which talks about Pioneer and Sharp "merging" their optical disc businesses. Maybe that's why the old Pioneer drives are disappearing and why the new 218 line uses a different chipset.