In House Review - Plextor PX-716A 16x DVD±RW

by **alexnoe** on Tue Feb 15, 2005 12:26 pm

OK, then I copied some code from Boone's ASPI guide

by **VideoRoy** on Tue Feb 15, 2005 12:31 pm

Excellent. I have not tried Plextools yet but will be installing it this evening.

I did notice that Nero did not Book Type my +RW to DVD-ROM disc but after reading Ian's review I see that is a limitation of the drive. Hopefully Nero will Book Type the +R correctly in this drive.

by **ETP** on Tue Feb 15, 2005 9:23 pm

Playing DVDs was crashing my system!

Got an e-mail from Plex in 1 min and they said uninstall Sonic DLA and INCD. Well I never realized I had Sonic DLA installed. Fixed the problem. :bow:

by **Ian** on Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:09 pm

I've run into the same problem with DLA. You'd think Sonic could get their software to work with a drive from a company like Plextor.

by **ETP** on Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:02 am

Why does it only do it with Plex? 5 other burners ae no problem.

by **alexnoe** on Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:08 am

Because Plextor has some funny b0rks in their firmware which make it impossible to do some stuff the normal way (e.g. you can't query the required amount of space for a read dvd structure command)

by **ETP** on Wed Feb 16, 2005 8:19 pm

Everything fine! But my 3500 with hacked FW is a read speed demon. My Plex is Sloooooooooooooooooooooooow. Any fix for this?

by **vsekh** on Wed Feb 16, 2005 10:36 pm

You need to enable speedread within Plextools to get fast read speeds with your 716a drive.

by **Sgt_Strider** on Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:48 am

I just notice that the review mentions that the European version of the 716-A have a black bezel. Does the North American version or even the Canadian version have a optional black bezel inside the box? Or I'll have to wait and buy the black version of the drive?

Also if I snap the black bezel on, would it appear like what the black version of the Plextor 716-A would look like?

Edit: Also I was wondering if the new firmwares made it better in copying protected audio discs? I notice in the CD freaks review, there was one audio disc that it couldn't copy properly.

by **alexnoe** on Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:33 am

My PX716 needs ~1minute to recognise the Helium Vola (Doc.lok.) disc. Maybe OC-Freak just wasn't patient enough

by **Ian** on Thu Feb 17, 2005 9:12 am

Sgt_Strider wrote:I just notice that the review mentions that the European version of the 716-A have a black bezel. Does the North American version or even the Canadian version have a optional black bezel inside the box? Or I'll have to wait and buy the black version of the drive?

Yes. I mentioned this in my review.

by **Ankerson** on Fri Feb 18, 2005 3:30 pm

Well I got my TY 8X DVD+R media in today. One thing I noticed right off is that there isn't a drop off at the end like the Verbatim 16X media.

ID. YUDEN000

Write test Started at 6.72X

Finished at 16.26X

Ave was 12.06X

by **ETP** on Fri Feb 18, 2005 5:11 pm

My TY+R drops off at the end!

by **alexnoe** on Fri Feb 18, 2005 5:15 pm

Use Plextor TY and disable PowerREC

by **ETP** on Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:55 pm

I loaded plex tools and it is off in the original load state. I did set the rec for ty at 16x to see what wiil happen.
Alex! Using Nero????????
If not! what are you using with shrink with your plex?

PS/Found another tab for Rec set. So I will see if this does the trick!
Also enabled speed read!

by **ETP** on Sat Feb 19, 2005 5:56 am

Everytime I check disable powerrec it reverts back after I minimize the screen! Anyway to keep disable power rec checked I
had to keep the screen open?

by **alexnoe** on Sat Feb 19, 2005 6:01 am

I do not use any kind of broken b0rkware like Nero, Shrink or CloneDVD for burning (I always knew that especially Nero has always written invalid DVD-Videos, which only run on some players, but I never found out why. Now someone found out why Nero written DVD-Video discs are corrupt).

I'm using cdrecord and dvd decrypter (cdrecord for normal compilations, and dvd decrypter for images, e.g. made with mkisofs)

by **ETP** on Sat Feb 19, 2005 6:20 am

Alex! Good read on that link! So far all my disks play in every player I have tried and I use Nero and Shrink.
But I think I will try a decrypter burn next and then look at the more involved process.

What about Power Rec! How do you keep those boxes checked?

by **alexnoe** on Sat Feb 19, 2005 6:24 am

I just check/uncheck them before I need it to be enabled/disabled.

by **ETP** on Sat Feb 19, 2005 6:41 am

Ok! I forced a burn at 16X. I had to do as you said before the burn and keep the window open. It tried to dump my settings during the burn.
Checking Troy for the end of the burn!

by **ETP** on Sat Feb 19, 2005 7:06 am

Terminal worked also and it played to the end. Did an ISO Decrypter burn out of Shrink for Terminal to check out the burn feature of Decrypter and it was good also.
Updated Plex tools at the Plex site and now my custom settings in the tabs STAY as checked. =D>

PS/ 6.06 min for a full DVD burn and a slow down at the end with the new .04u FW update. A forced 16x burn would have been even faster. But I have no coasters yet and I do not need any! :lol:

by **VEFF** on Mon Mar 28, 2005 11:56 pm

I am embarrassed to say that I didn't know how many features such as GigaRec, Q-Check, SecureRecording (in addition to AutoStrategy which I already knew about think has to be one of its most unique and useful features) this thing has! - was just glossing over the pdf at plextor.com

To think I actually hesitated briefly (contemplated waiting for the 3540A which would have been at least $10 more than today's special PX-716A sale price).

I'll install the drives tomorrow and see how they fare.

In House Review - Plextor PX-716A 16x DVD±RW

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