both are good burners the Pioneer drive may not be able to booktype DVD+R media to DVD-ROM where the Sony drive will be able to ,so i would lean towards the Sony drive for that reason
Well thats if you want to booktype if not the pioneer drive is a great drive for backing up your movies it does a great job for me i have 2 drives and they both work like a charm.
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I look at it as to how many different stand alone players/game consoles/and other pc drives that you plan on your backups to play in.
A couple drives,then you may be ok.
A lot of other drives,then you may want to look at a drive that will booktype.
Sony outsources some of their drives. Lite-on and benq make some of them.I'd make sure that sony can booktype before I purchased it,so the model # would help.
Most DVD-RW drives will burn ok,and play them back ok using that drive to play them on your pc.But when you start slapping them into other friends/family members drive,then you may face compatability issues.
If you see an error like: No disc/Dirty disc/Wrong region/or Wrong format,then it's usually an issue with the format you are using.With a non-booktyping drive,your other option is to use the opposite format.
Booktyping drives like Benq/Plextor/Lite-on/LG/some sony/NEC-Pioneer with hacked firmware will have a higher compatability rate using the plus format and booktyping them to dvd-rom. It gives you a third format of dvd-rom to set your backups to. Not actual dvd-rom,like originals are,it just changes how a stand alone player recognizes them.They see it as an actual dvd-rom,so will have an easier time playing them.It actually fools them.
Sony and pioneer are quality drives,which is a must.You'll get great backups.After that,anything goes when you play them on those whacky stand alone players.Make sure you feed them the quality media. Stand alone players will have a harder time playing crap media.
I go by my past results. Burner quality and booktyping is critical for me.My benq backups will play just about anywhere.My 3 other pc burners,not even close.That's why my benqs burn,and those other drives are either reading/lightscribing/or collecting dust.
Besides,you can get the Benq 1650 for under $40 at newegg,including shipping. Quality drive,cheap price!
