New Plextor PX-708A Firmware 1.01

by **aviationwiz** on Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:07 pm

PX-708A V1.01

Fixed Bugs:
Compatibility with Dantz's Retrospect, Roxio's Drag to Disc and other utilities.

Improvements:
Write performance for 8x writing on DVD+R media.
Write performance for DVD-R media.
Write performance for DVD-RW media.

Download it here:
http://www.plextor.be/english/technical ... _708A.html

VEFF, wanna give this one a try first? I tried 1.0 first.

by **VEFF** on Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:15 pm

Thanks for the info aviationwiz.
Plextor sure was quick with that update.
Regarding your trying 1.0 first: 1.0 came with the burner though?

Anyway, don't worry, I'll probably try it tonight after my new car test drive.
I have been burning a fair amount with it, and I would love to maximize the quality of the written discs, although I haven't had any real issues yet.

Just like TEAC, Plextor seems not to coordinate their page updates too well.
The media info (a few weeks old now) and firmware upgrade haven't been posted on plextor.com yet...

by **aviationwiz** on Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:23 pm

Plextor America is always slow, that's old news.

by **VEFF** on Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:35 pm

aviationwiz wrote:Plextor America is always slow, that's old news.

I haven't owned a Plextor before, so it is news to me

; although I am not surprised...
Of course it doesn't really matter anyway, as long as one knows where to look, and one of the two sites has the info and upgrades...

I am impressed at how quickly they released the update; I think Sony set the (new) standard with the frequency of their DRU-500A upgrades.
Hopefully Plextor will do the same...

by **OC-Freak** on Mon Sep 15, 2003 5:01 pm

This firmware cured some of my initial problems with the drive. Now it writes all RICOHJPN01 and Taiyo yuden 4X DVD+R media at 8X without problems.

Still it do not work with memorex 48X CD-R and princo 4X DVD-R.

by **aviationwiz** on Mon Sep 15, 2003 5:02 pm

That's good to hear OC-Freak.

*aviationwiz begins updating*

by **OC-Freak** on Mon Sep 15, 2003 5:35 pm

Write quality is improved as well, but still not good compared to my memorex dual-x dvd writer.

by **aviationwiz** on Mon Sep 15, 2003 5:45 pm

Ack, your results are off. A 30 for PI is way to high.

by **drakus** on Mon Sep 15, 2003 8:54 pm

Ok so can anybody that has a 708A bought from the US can aply the firmware upgrade or just from europe?

by **aviationwiz** on Mon Sep 15, 2003 9:00 pm

Any PX-708A can use this firmware upgrade.

by **DrFox** on Tue Sep 16, 2003 5:15 am

I bought my Plextor PX-708A (black) in the US a week an a half ago and I have firmware 1.01 there already.

So, I suggest you to check first - may be you don't need an upgade. By the way - I think that's why Plextor delayed 708A in the US - they probably wanted to ship it with the new firmware to avoid bad reviews.
By the way, guys - I LOVE this drive. It writes ALL my OLD optodisc 1x DVD+R and DVD-R at 2 and 2.4x and ALL 4x media (even some cheap unbranded one) at 8x. :wink:

By the way - what program it is better to use to identify media manufacturer? I tryied old unsupported CDRIdentifier.exe v1.63 and it can't see my PX-708A, Nero InfoTool doesn't say much and Nero Speed Info can't recognize neither this cheap media that I use at 8x nor Ritec 4x that as far as I understand is RICOH (it does recognize my old CompUsa +R and -R thoug that are OPTODISK001).

I use Nero 6.0.0.11 (that includes Nero CD-DVD Speed 2.01)

by **Stelios** on Tue Sep 16, 2003 6:43 am

<Still it do not work with memorex 48X CD-R and princo 4X DVD-R.>

OC-Freak I have burned several princo 4xDVD-R with no problem. This was done with firmware V1.0 and V.101
By the way how are princor disks generally rated?

Stelios

by **tazdevl** on Tue Sep 16, 2003 2:37 pm

Buffer fluctuation is all over the place with 1.01. Regardless what the techs @ Plex say, this is a drive issue.

Stelios, Princo discs are not well known for quality. They have spotty batches... some people have good luck, others don't.

*EDIT - Write times have actually increased.

by **VEFF** on Tue Sep 16, 2003 2:44 pm

taz,

That is interesting.
Which software (and speed) are you getting the buffer fluctuations with?
I assume it is Nero?

I have absolutely no fluctuation at 4X (for some reason one of my discs burned at 4X yesterday; maybe I was doing something at the beginning of the burn, or some process was eating up more CPU cycles than usual); it stays pretty much locked around 91% for the entire burn.

However, at 8X, it does fluctuate somewhat. It stays close to 91% much of the time, but there are some drops to the upper 70s, if memory serves me well.
I will check it closely tonight.

What kind of fluctuations are you getting?

by **tazdevl** on Tue Sep 16, 2003 2:56 pm

I think it's the drive, if it's Nero, I wish Ahead would get off their collective butts and do some code cleanup, optimizations and fix their buggy product. Program is as big of a resource hog as Easy CD these days.

Using Nero 60011.

Using TDK 4X +R media. Burned 4 discs @ 8X. Same thing every time. Even @ 8X, if nothing else is going on with your system, should still be plenty of IDE bandwidth. Look @ my specs, this shouldn't stress my system one bit, overclocked to 3.4GHZ and all my bus speeds are within spec.

Buffer is hopping between 80-97%. Every other burner I've owned had zero fluctuation on the buffer when it was writing. It was fluctuating initially, then installed a INF update for my Max3, went away, now firmware update to 1.01, it's back.

by **OC-Freak** on Tue Sep 16, 2003 3:45 pm

About the princo issue:

All 4X princo discs with a serial number starting with 4X works. Your discs is probably of this type.

My problematic 4X discs starts with M or H in the serial number. (yep they are identifed as 4X in dvdinfopro). They works pretty well in my memorex dual-x, but not in the plextor 708A.

Memorex CD-R issue: these discs is problematic in most drives except for Lite-On drives which writes them with low error amount as well (avg 0.6 C1).

New Plextor PX-708A Firmware 1.01

New Plextor PX-708A Firmware 1.01

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