Plextor 8x DVD Writer (Comments on Drive ONLY)

[hoxlund]

haha gotta love beer coasters

[VEFF]

I just got home ten minutes ago.
I have already finished installing the drive.

I am going to grab a bite to eat and then try a burn.

I am impressed with the documentation: Plextor includes a 73 page owner's manual!!! And that isn't because it is in five languages either, it is all one language.

[VEFF]

I just burned my first DVD+R at 8X.
I used a TDK 4X +R disc and Stomp RecordNow Max 4.5
The burn completed successfully.

The total burn time for 3.67 GB (that is a true 3.67 GB by the way, not the way the HD and DVD disc manufacturers report gigs), including finalizing (lead out etc.) was 7 mins 17 secs.
My Sony DVD player has no problem playing the disc (I played bits of selected chapters, including the last one).


I will try a Verbatim 4X disc next.
I will try to do a full disc (leaving a little room intentionally), such as 4.29 GB.

[tazdevl]

Thanks Veff, be interested to heard the results.

Have to say I'll be pretty happy with a 7 min burn... 6 times the capacity of a CD in ~2.5 times the time is a pretty good ratio.

[VEFF]

Well, the Verbatim 4X (DataLife not DataLife Plus) with the black spindle also burned successfully at 8X.

Total burn time (inc. finalizing) for 3.81 GB was 7 mins 33 seconds.
I thought my video was a bit longer; oh well.
The disc plays fine in the Sony home DVD player as well.

The media ID shows "MCC 002"


I will try the gray spindle next. I assume those might be Ricoh, which should also burn at 8X.

I am psyched!

The Plextor also has the smoothest, quietest tray of any drive I have ever owned.

I couldn't be happier with the drive!!!!
Kudos to Plextor!

[dodecahedron]

The Plextor also has the smoothest, quietest tray of any drive I have ever owned.

apparently you haven't had Plextor or LG drives before, then.

[VEFF]

The Plextor also has the smoothest, quietest tray of any drive I have ever owned.

apparently you haven't had Plextor or LG drives before, then.

Nope, I haven't had the privilege, until now that is.
I will certainly be buying Plextor again.

I was actually going to say in my previous post that I might consider buying another Plextor 708A around Christmas or on Black Friday for my 2nd PC, if the price is right, but I thought who knows what will happen before or by then...

[VEFF]

I successfully burned a 4X Verbatim DataLife DVD+R disc from the gray spindle at 8X.
It turned out to be Ricoh Japan, as I had guessed from the spindle having a different color plastic than the MCC ones, which I bought more of.

I will be keeping all my Verbatim, TDK and Memorex 4X +R discs.
I now have plenty of 8X capable media, most of which were slightly over a $1 per disc without rebates + tax! Some were just under a buck a piece.

I have so far only used RecordNow Max with the PX-708A.
The drive came with Easy CD/DVD 6, which I already own.
Easy CD/DVD 6 actually hangs on my PC, which no other software on my PC does, so I will probably stick with Stomp and Nero for the most part.

[tazdevl]

I have so far only used RecordNow Max with the PX-708A.
The drive came with Easy CD/DVD 6, which I already own.
Easy CD/DVD 6 actually hangs on my PC, which no other software on my PC does, so I will probably stick with Stomp and Nero for the most part.

You try Nero 6011 yet? Might want to PM CCampbell or dburg about the 708A issues if you haven't.

[VEFF]

I have so far only used RecordNow Max with the PX-708A.
The drive came with Easy CD/DVD 6, which I already own.
Easy CD/DVD 6 actually hangs on my PC, which no other software on my PC does, so I will probably stick with Stomp and Nero for the most part.

You try Nero 6011 yet? Might want to PM CCampbell or dburg about the 708A issues if you haven't.

I haven't tried Nero yet. I'll try it later and post any issues.

[Bhairav]

Ian: According to alexnoe and rdgrimes @ cdfreaks, the kind of results aviationwiz showed with the TY -R media are very good.

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php ... adid=67821

Loads of media tests there, but it also depends on the drive you are using to scan for PI/PO errors. Maybe Dave can shed some more light on this, as he's been scanning the DVD+R/RWs he burned on his 401S.

[hoxlund]

aviation uses his 163d litey drive to check p1/p0

[cfitz]

Fuji (TY) 4x DVD-R written at 4x on PX-708A.

Enjoy:
<snip>
That looks very good to me. I don't know what the huge line in the middle is though.

It looks great to me as well. Keep posting results like that, aviationwiz, and you will make us all Plextor Fan-atics.

Here are some pressed DVD results:





Pretty ugly, huh? The spikes seem to be somewhat common. I don't know exactly what they are, but my suspicion is that they are hiccups in the measurement process and shouldn't be attributed to the disc quality. I suspect this because they seem to shift in position from test to test on the same disc in the same drive.

Your Plextor result also looks good in comparison to the Lite-On LDW-401S, Optorite DD0203 and Sony DRU-510UL results dhc014 posted:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic. ... 5377#75377

I must mention one caveat: my results (and dhc014's as well, I think) were measured on a 166S, while yours were measured on a 163D. I don't know that there is any difference between the two, but there is at least a possibility that there could be. It would be nice to do some testing of the same disc on different drives to see how consistent the measurements are.

Is that good? Does anyone know what PI/PO results are acceptable? Just curious.

Oh, how quickly they forget:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic. ... 5145#75145

By the way, I think most people are using the KProbe default of reporting the errors for 1 ECC block. Everyone should use the same measurement method, if possible, to ease comparisons. And I think that method should be to report the errors for 8 ECC blocks so that it is most comparable to the PI standard. Unfortunately, reporting for 8 blocks isn't the default of KProbe, and I suspect a lot of people don't realize the setting can be changed and don't know how to do it. Here is how:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic. ... 6179#76179

The other unfortunate thing is the summary header saved with the KProbe results file doesn't indicate how many ECC blocks were summed over for the measurement.

cfitz

[hoxlund]

im using the 166S JLMS too, lovin the drive btw

[VEFF]

I had no problem with Nero, unlike aviationwiz.

I burned a Verbatim 4X DVD+R at 8X with Nero 6.0.0.11 (I hadn't upgraded to the latest yet), and it completed successfully.
The disc plays fine in my home DVD player.

It was almost full [4.34 GB (out of a maximum 4.37 GB which is "4.7" GB)] in only 8 mins 25 sec (including lead-in and lead-out), which is faster than the claimed speed of about (9? to) 10 minutes.

[VEFF]

Have you tried the 6.0.0.11 version that is supposed to work according to the reports in the other thread?

That was jsl's comment to aviationwiz.


I have 6.0.0.11, and it worked fine, at 8X, for me, as posted above.
Hopefully aviationwiz can try that version with it...

[Ian]

Oh, how quickly they forget:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic. ... 5145#75145

I killed too many brain cells over the Labor Day weekend.

[OC-Freak]

To be honest: This drive have really disappointed me.

-No printed manual in retail package (just a small quixk install paper).
-No media included in retail package.
-Do not work with some types of princo DVD-R 4X media (do not recognize the discs at all).
-Writes Arita 4X DVD+R at 8X, but discs ends up unreadable (can't be recognized by any drives) media is RICOHJPNR01. Same result with memorex 4X DVD+R with the same media code.
-My writtten Ritek G04 DVD-R discs ends up as unreadable by all drives.
-Wrote Verbatim datalifeplus 4X DVD+R at 8X, but the amount of PI/PO errors is 10x higher compared to discs written on my memorex dual-X. These Verbatim datalifeplus 4X DVD+R discs is made by taiyo yuden.
-Will not write my memorex 48X CD-R discs at any speed.

Only good thing so far is recording time at 8X which is about 8 minutes for a full 4,38gb disc. And that it wrote some datawrite redtop 4X DVD-R discs(princo manufactured) without problems and acceptable error rates (only twice as high, compared to same discs written in memorex dual-x).

[tazdevl]

To be honest: This drive have really disappointed me.

-No printed manual in retail package (just a small quixk install paper).
-No media included in retail package.
-Do not work with some types of princo DVD-R 4X media (do not recognize the discs at all).
-Writes Arita 4X DVD+R at 8X, but discs ends up unreadable (can't be recognized by any drives) media is RICOHJPNR01. Same result with memorex 4X DVD+R with the same media code.
-My writtten Ritek G04 DVD-R discs ends up as unreadable by all drives.
-Wrote Verbatim datalifeplus 4X DVD+R at 8X, but the amount of PI/PO errors is 10x higher compared to discs written on my memorex dual-X. These Verbatim datalifeplus 4X DVD+R discs is made by taiyo yuden.
-Will not write my memorex 48X CD-R discs at any speed.

Only good thing so far is recording time at 8X which is about 8 minutes for a full 4,38gb disc. And that it wrote some datawrite redtop 4X DVD-R discs(princo manufactured) without problems and acceptable error rates (only twice as high, compared to same discs written in memorex dual-x).

First question... what burning app are you using and what version? If you're using 6015, try 6011. Veff had better luck with it. Might also want to try another burning app to be sure it isn't the drive.

BTW I'm not surprised you had problems with Princo since they are cheap media.

Be sure to email Plex tech and let them know the media compatibility problems you're having. Good chance since it's launch time they will act quickly.

[hoxlund]

hey, hey, princo are not cheap media, i use em in my sony at 4x just fine

[aviationwiz]

Princo is cheap media, both price and quality wise. While you may have good luck with it, other media such as TY and Mitsubishi is ten million times better.

As far as bang for the buck goes, who knows, it probably is better than TY or Mitsubishi, only as far as bang for the buck goes though.

[aviationwiz]

Here's a disk:

Fuji TY 4x DVD-R

[OC-Freak]

I used CopytoDVD newest version and nero 6.0.0.11.

the reorder number on my TY verbatims is: 43211, they came in 5 packs with jewel case and says made in Japan.

aviationwiz: try to scan your discs at maximum speed, do that make a difference in PI/PO amount?

[VEFF]

I don't know which retail package you saw OC Freak, but mine DID come with:

a 73 page printed manual

a blank DVD+R disc (approved by Plextor for 8X)


It also came with:

an IDE cable

Easy CD/DVD 6 (and other software? I haven't used the disc, so I didn't check its contents. I just read that Easy CD/DVD 6 is included on the box or in the manual).

I haven't checked the errors using a utility, but all the Verbatim and TDK discs burned at 8X play flawlessly on my Sony NS-715P DVD player.

I haven only had it for a few days and have spent the last two days with my girlfriend, so I haven't tested it with any utilities, but I am very happy so far.
The tray/mechanism is exceptionally smooth and quiet.


I will run some tests during the week...

[aviationwiz]

The reason for the different included items is because VEFF is in America, and OC Freak is in Europe.