I just got this brand new pioneer DVR A08Xl and then upgraded it to the latest 1.14 firmware. well
Now i got my hands on some of the new verbatim 16x DVD+R discs and it would only say it could do 12x.. I thought that was strange and nothing. no ideentifying program or anything would even say the drive is capable of 16x. so flashed it back to the 1.06 firmware and the 16x option is back.
ANyone else having that problem? or something similar?

I got a DVR-A08XL as well as the DVR-108 (in another PC). Both of mine came with 1.10 on them, and I upgraded to 1.14 right away on both. Awesome drives. Question is, why do you WANT to write at 16X vs 12X? 12X is faster most of the time and a lot SAFER. (less likely to die at the last couple hundred MB). I am thinking Pioneer made it 12X for reliability reasons on those disks. BTW: The TY DVD+R 8X disks still work at 16X, but I set the speed to 12X for the above reasons.

I agree: Pioneer 108 is a very nice driving in deciding what is the safest fastest burn speed with still good quality. It does that better than any other drive I know.

The timing savings from 12x to 16x are marginal and not worth the effort, imho.

ok i was just thinking anyways. b/c i paid for this good verbatim 16x discs and i wanted to freakin use them >_<
i went back upto 1.14. i just hope that they come out with another firmware that fixes that speed issue

Probably they have realised that media does not burn well at 16x, so they lowered the write speed to 12x in 1.14 firmware. However Pioneer has released an officially supported media list which you can see at http://www.pioneer-eur.com (look for it). It contains available speeds with manufacturers and sometimes media codes too.

Hmm, i got the 108 oem and i take 7m 02secs to burn a full dvdr to the max limit at 12x and take only 6m 30secs at 16x on datawtite 8x media using NILS hacked 1.14 and ones previous.

Not any probs playing back on any drivers or standalones.

Just check the a08xl review here on cd-freaks.