Pioneer A04 min. system requirements

[dlewis187]

I just got the A04 and was reading the system requirements and was blown away.

1ghz processor
256 ram
20gigs free

I was gona put it in its own box to setup a burn only system, but now I am not sure.
I don't have an extra ghz laying around. Right now my 24x cd burner is on a PII 350
and a 9gig scsi drive. Can DVD burning really be that much more difficult then burning cd's?

 

[Eug]

Well, you can burn on just about anything, but if you're encoding your own MPEG-2 video streams, it's gonna take a LONG time on a PII 350. Also, video playback is pretty dicey on that speed of a computer, unless you have a card with DVD playback assist.

However, for the actual burning, all you need is a computer that will have enough space to hold a DVD (eg. 5 GBs) and a system fast enough to provide the data (which is 99% of current hard drives). For burning only, a PII 350 would be fine.

 

[dlewis187]

Thats what I thought. I have another machine for playback. But have no intentions of encoding with my current hardware.
From what I can tell the a04 has some sort of underburn protection like cdr/rw drives? And yet I see in some forums people
complaining that they cannot multitask when burning. The "trick" is to leave the machine alone when it burns a dvd-r. So
its back to the old days like the 2x cdr days? Whats the deal?

 

[BillDKiller]

I can multi-task on my machine while burning a DVD-R with my 1.4 Athlon rig. It is just so ridiculously slow that you won't want to. Using Nero I am almost always at 95-100% CPU usage. I think that is typical even when you have a faster processor, it just grabs all of the available memory and such. This shouldn't be the case since it is only burning at 1X, but it is.

I think, as Eug was gettting at, that you will run out of HD space first. Even a minimal OS will take up around 4 Gb, so you will only have around 4 Gb left to work with. You have to have some swap file room or nothing will work. With a usual dvd-r at 4.5GB you can see the problem.

I run a 30GB drive and I am constantly running out of space doing my dvd backups.

But the good thing is I have found the AO4 to be the perfect drive. Rock solid, quiet and almost foolproff.

 

[Eug]

From what I can tell the a04 has some sort of underburn protection like cdr/rw drives?

Yep. Both the Pioneer A04 and the Panasonic LF-D321 have buffer underrun protection for both CD and DVD burning. It's always best not to make use of that though.

I can multi-task on my machine while burning a DVD-R with my 1.4 Athlon rig. It is just so ridiculously slow that you won't want to. Using Nero I am almost always at 95-100% CPU usage. I think that is typical even when you have a faster processor, it just grabs all of the available memory and such. This shouldn't be the case since it is only burning at 1X, but it is.

Hmmm... Strange. What do you mean by multitasking? I can multitask OK, although I must say my concept of multitasking is simply surfing and running Word while burning. Also, sometimes my data isn't on the same drive as the one with all my applications, and that would make a huge difference.

Have you enabled DMA for your drive? Because if you haven't then it will make your computer slow as molasses. Be forewarned though, for some reason on some systems, the Pioneer does not function properly with DMA active. I haven't heard the same problem happening though with the Panasonic. I wonder if the complaints online about multitasking are related to the DMA issues.

Also, it may depend on how fast you're burning. With an A04 you can burn up to 2X. With my Panasonic the only DVD-R burn speed is 1X.

 

[BillDKiller]

I definitely wouldn't advise using UDMA mode on a A04. If you read the different forums you will see they all advise against this. Mine would work on UDMA2, but it would burn coasters or lock up about half the time while burning. I now have it set on PIO mode and it works fine. And yes, it is very slow while I am burning in PIO mode, and only reads about 3X, but what can you do. I think the technology is still evolving, and it isn't perfect yet. Supposedly the newest Nero about to be released will fix a lot of the dvd issues, but we'll have to wait and see.

Yes, the A04 will burn at 2X. But with the cost of the media being so high, I haven't tried it at that speed yet. Hopefully once the media type wars between dvd-r and dvd+r are over the prices will go down.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: BillDKiller
I definitely wouldn't advise using UDMA mode on a A04. If you read the different forums you will see they all advise against this. Mine would work on UDMA2, but it would burn coasters or lock up about half the time while burning. I now have it set on PIO mode and it works fine. And yes, it is very slow while I am burning in PIO mode, and only reads about 3X, but what can you do. I think the technology is still evolving, and it isn't perfect yet. Supposedly the newest Nero about to be released will fix a lot of the dvd issues, but we'll have to wait and see.

Yes, the A04 will burn at 2X. But with the cost of the media being so high, I haven't tried it at that speed yet. Hopefully once the media type wars between dvd-r and dvd+r are over the prices will go down.

I have read of many people using the A04 with DMA with no problems. But I have also read of many people having problems with DMA, including you.

OTOH, the Panasonics seem to love DMA. I've been using DMA right from the beginning. Thus I have no problems with multitasking.

 

[BillDKiller]

Yes, I agree about the Panasonics. I think if my Pioneer ever craps out I will probably go with the Panasonic. Either that or put a Pioneer in a firewire setup, or off of a separate ide card. I hear they work very well in these setups.

BTW my reading of your FAQs was very helpful in my decision of what type of dvd writer to buy. Just a quick thank you.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: BillDKiller
Yes, I agree about the Panasonics. I think if my Pioneer ever craps out I will probably go with the Panasonic. Either that or put a Pioneer in a firewire setup, or off of a separate ide card. I hear they work very well in these setups.

Well, maybe by that time the new Panasonic LF-D521 Burner II will be out. (It's scheduled for Q4 2002.) It will support DVD-RAM 2X, DVD-R 2X, and DVD-RW 1X - a true DVD Multi burner, and it supports CD burning too. There will also be the LG GMA-4020B, another true DVD Multi burner. Then again, the new Pioneer 4X DVD-R burner may be on the horizon for Q1 2003. Competition is good...

BTW my reading of your FAQs was very helpful in my decision of what type of dvd writer to buy. Just a quick thank you.

Glad to be service.