In House Review - Plextor PX-760A 18x DVD±RW

[Ian]

CDRLabs has taken an in depth look at Plextor's new 18x DVD±RW, the PX-760A. This highly anticipated drive features some of the fastest reading and writing speeds available. The PX-760A is capable of 18x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 10x DVD+R DL and 6x DVD-R DL writing speeds and has a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. It also supports many of the features we've come to expect from Plextor, including a number of more advanced technologies like GigaRec, Q-Check and AUTOSTRATEGY.

In this review we'll take a look at the features found on the PX-760A and see how it compares to some of the DVD±RW drives from the competition. Are 18x DVD±R writing speeds enough to put the PX-760A on top? You'll have to read the review to find out.

[url=http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.php?reviewid=286]
Plextor PX-760A 18x DVD±RW[/url]

As usual, if you have any comments or questions about this review or the Plextor PX-760A, please post them in the forum using the link provided below.

[Ian]

It figures... Plextor Japan releases the 1.03 firmware the day the review is done.

http://plextor.jp/download/firmware/px760_103.zip

DVD+R DL record efficiency improvement of media.
DVD-RW 1x record efficiency improvement of media.
CD-R record efficiency improvement of media.
The new media correspondence of DVD.

[hoxlund]

i would say not a bad final score, especially for a tla of 0001 and 2 firmware updates

[MonsterMan]

Interesting how it couldn't beat the LG 4167 in burn time...not surprising, but interesting.

[Scour]

Great review

I´m not sure about the writing-quality. Cheaper media like Ritek F1 and Optodisc -R 16x burned fine, but very good media like MCC004, TYG03 and T03 are not so impressing

[Ian]

Well, in defense of MCC004, TYG03 and T03, they were written at 18x. I was expecting much worse though. The more "problematic" media worked surprisingly well though. They really need to improve support for RITEKR04 though. It's horrible with the 1.02 firmware. I gotta try 1.03 to see if its better.

[ChunkyBarf]

Dear Ian,
I enjoyed the review immensely and am continually amazed at the level of engineering and creativity that is going into Plextor's drives.
I spotted a few mishaps though ... lemme know if I am tripping:

1. On the Features page, you mention PX-750A, as opposed to PX-760A.
2. I am having trouble figuring out what is going on in one of the graphs on the Performance page. In the CD ReWriting section your wording does not match the graph.

Code: Select all

While the PX-760A uses CAV when writing to CD-R discs, it uses Z-CLV, or Zone CLV, when rewriting at 32x. By looking at the screenshot above, you can see that it uses a total of three "zones" to reach its maximum speed. The drive starts writing at 16x and jumps to 24x at about the 7 minute mark. The PX-760A writes at this speed until about the 27 minute mark. When it reaches this point, its writing speed increases to 32x and stays there until the end of the session.

The graph does not show another spike at the 27 minute mark though, it continues to plateau at 24x. This would make sense seeing as how you said that the media itself is 24x. Do the other 2 burners (NEC & LG) burn faster than the rated media? Is it the Plextor that is capped at 24X ReWriting or is it due to the media? Would burning with 32X media have helped at all? I am a bit confused on this.

Thanks for any clarifications you can afford,
ChunkyBarf

[Ian]

Thanks ChunkyBarf. In case #1, it was a typo. In #2, it was some junk left over from a previous review. Both are fixed now.

[Gabe]

Very good review, indeed

Interesting, that u scan with 3 different drives

[Gen-An]

Interesting how it couldn't beat the LG 4167 in burn time...not surprising, but interesting.

Someone over at CD Freaks brought out a point about the 760A vs the 4167B that I'd never even thought about:
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.php?p ... ostcount=4

I'd say people should cut Plextor some slack in light of that fact.

[Ian]

Interesting, that u scan with 3 different drives

Dolph is rubbing off on me. On a serious note, I wanted to include PlexTools scans but at the same time didn't want to omit the BenQ or Lite-On tests.

That is a good point Gen-An.

[Scour]

Are the difference between the 760 and 755 are big, or is it just the 18x-speed of the 760?

[Noua]

Interesting how it couldn't beat the LG 4167 in burn time...not surprising, but interesting.

Someone over at CD Freaks brought out a point about the 760A vs the 4167B that I'd never even thought about:
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.php?p ... ostcount=4

I'd say people should cut Plextor some slack in light of that fact.

I've analysed both graphs and I see some interesting points.

- Both burners start at +-7x speed
- At 1gb mark plextor is burning aprox. 10,5X while LG is at 10x.
- At 1.5gb mark both burners are at 12X.
- At 2gb both burners are at 13x.
- At 3.5gb both burners are aprox. at 16x (the plextor is burning a little faster). Here is where the Plextor starts to burn faster.
- The plextor keeps increasing the speed until it reaches the 18x at the 4.3gb while the LG stayed on the 16x mark.

We can conclude that the Plextor has something like 1.3gb of data where it burns faster then the LG and still the total recording time is slower.

Very, very interresting.

At first I thought it could be something like the DVD speanning but I believe that would make the burn speed to drop.

Right now I can only suggest that it might be lead in/out record times that are causing the differences but without the 2 drives to make more tests this is just guessing...