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Several months ago, we would have embraced Pioneer's DVR-A04. After all, it creates DVD home movies on highly compatible, write-once DVD-R discs, backs up data to 4.7GB rewritable DVD-RW discs, and at $499, ships at half the original price of the older DVD-A03.

The new drive offers only minor improvements over its forerunner, however. And the DVD Forum's DVD-RW/R standard is now under fire from the DVD+RW Alliance's DVD+R, the new write-once sibling of rival format DVD+RW. With competing drives likely out next month and also at $499, it'll be a market donnybrook that confuses buyers. (For more on formats, see "The DVD Dilemma.")

Plus and Minus

Pioneer has improved the DVR-A04: It's slightly smaller, DVD-ROM read speed has stepped up to 6X from 4X, and CD-ROM read speed has jumped to 24X from 16X. The drive also handles the high-speed CD-RW media its predecessor choked on. (See New Products for a review of DVD authoring software.)

But the unit is slower than the DVD+RW and +R competition in most respects. While its 2X DVD-R write speed rivals DVD+R's claimed 2.4X, its 1X DVD-RW write speed is less than half of the 2.4X of DVD+RW, and its 8X/4X CD-R/RW write speeds lag the 12X/10X speeds of DVD+RW drives. (With CD technology, 1X equals 150 KBps; with DVD, 1X equals 1.38 MBps.)

The older DVR-A03's overwhelming advantage over the first crop of DVD+RW drives was that, besides supporting low-reflectivity, rewritable media, the DVR-A03 also wrote to far more compatible high-reflectivity, write-once discs. But new DVD+RW drives will write to their own high-reflectivity, write-once media. We haven't tested the DVD+R media's compatibility with legacy DVD-ROM drives and DVD movie players, but the simple fact that older devices won't mistake DVD+R for a dual-layer disc as they do DVD+RW media should bring a huge improvement.

In the end, we expect the rewritable and write-once discs from both camps to play in movie players and DVD drives with the same respective degree of compatibility. In background discussions, industry experts estimated 50 percent compatibility with older movie players and drives for +RW and -RW discs, and about 85 percent for -R and +R discs. (Note: The older the device, the less chance it will play any homemade disc.)

Thanks to the DVR-A03's large installed base and nearly a year's head start for DVD-RW and DVD-R, however, the DVR-A04 still has a big advantage over its rivals: cheaper media. DVD-Rs cost about $2 a disc and are dropping. With DVD+Rs debuting at $7, you can burn three DVD-Rs for every DVD+R--a substantial savings. It's unclear how long this will last, but for now Pioneer holds an economic edge (+RW and -RW disc prices are on a par with each other).

Choices, Choices

The upshot is, users face confusing choices. DVD+RW drives hold a speed edge, but DVD+R is unproven, and currently DVD-R media is much cheaper than DVD+R. Our advice: Stick with what you have, track media and drive prices, and see how DVD+R stacks up before you buy a new drive. And keep an eye out: There are rumors of upcoming drives that will write and read all four media types.

SUMMARY

DVR-A04 Street: $499 Pioneer