Plextor 708A: First exclusive look at 8X DVD+R
by Kristopher Kubicki on September 12, 2003 11:11 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Burning
Click to enlarge.
There you have it, 8X DVD+R — exactly 8 minutes to burn 4.38GB. CD Speed incorrectly identifies the 8X Z-CLV (zone constant linear velocity) mode as 6X CLV due to PoweRec. As you may have read on the previous page, PoweRec redefines the laser intensity and spin at its own discretion.
However, we do have a complaint or two about the tiny buffer on the drive. During the above burn, we did not touch the PC at all. Below is a graph of 4X DVD+R media while we had a Microsoft Office document open. The spikes are the points where we saved the sub-100kb document. We are happy that the burn did not under-run; but, has optical storage taken a step backward?
Click to enlarge.
Below are the CD-R, CD+RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R and DVD-RW speed tests. We used CD Speed with the same configuration as the previous test.
| Average Transfer | Media Length | |
| Imation 52X CDR Data CD | 29.31X | 79.49.74 |
| PNY 52X CDR Data CD | 29.24X | 79.49.74 |
| Mitsubishi 32X CDRW Data CD | 23.78X | 73:43.00 |
| Mitsubishi 24X CDRW Data CD | 23.66X | 73:43.00 |
| FujiFilm 4X DVD-R Data CD | 4.01X | 4.38GB |
| TDK 4X DVD-R Data CD | 4.00X | 4.38GB |
| FujiFilm 4X DVD+R Data CD | 7.70X | 4.38GB |
| Imation 4X DVD+R Data CD | 7.69X | 4.38GB | FujiFilm 4X DVD-RW Data CD | 4.05X | 4.38GB | FujiFilm 2.4X DVD+RW Data CD | 2.41X | 4.38GB |
The drive had no problem at all burning other 4X DVD+R media at 8X. Perhaps because the 8X DVD-R format is not officially standard, the 708A does not have the proper strategy logic to burn 8X DVD-R. As future BIOS upgrade to enable 8X DVD-R certainly seems feasible, it is obvious that no one will know until the DVD dash R forum gets their ducks in a row.
Full erase of a DVD+RW takes 24:23 minutes. A similar time was recorded for DVD-RW.
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blackjack - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
well in response to your response, I also have a plextor 24/10/40a cd writer. Also the cd tray is really slow to eject, don't know if that is a common thing with plextor although the new dvd writer is quite fast (well in comparison). I could never get it to work with easy cd creator and it always used to create problems using cds with computers at work. The fact that plextor bundles nero and not easy cd creator says something to me. Also it seems that for re-writing, you have to have INCD which I'm positive isn't compatible with roxio because I got a message saying I had to uninstall it. Please direct me to an appropriate webpage and put me out of my ignorance.Anonymous User - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
"For years, Plextor took an approach to optical storage that was only duplicated by a few manufacturers. 8MB buffers, extra features and rock solid performance put Plextor on the high end of CDR and CDRW drives."those 8MB buffers were in yamaha's drives when plextor still used 4MB.
Also burnproof technology doesn't mean a small buffer is as good as a bigger one. Why ?, because when the drive actualy uses its burnproof to recover the disc this process costs extra time so the average burning speed goes down. Therefore to achieve a high burn speed there should be very little (none at best) recovering by the burnproof circuit and the bigger the buffer the smaller the chance the burnproof technology needs to recover.
Falco. - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
KristopherKubickibah.. i'd rather u test the tdk branded one then the oem, even if they are the same.....
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
#13: The TDK drive is nice, but TDK doesnt make it ;) We have the OEM drive in a future review coming up.Cheers,
Kristopher
Anonymous User - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
futureshop canada has a sale on LG 4x dvd-r drive (does all the formats) for 200$ cdn after rebate...8x can wait for that price..Falco. - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
blackjack..plextor hardware doesn't like ezcd ??? since when ?? ezcd is all i have ever used for my plextor 12/10/32 scsi cd writer, and i have had no problems with it..
and WHY wasn't the tdk dual format mentioned at all in this review??? and will it be included in the round up ????????????????????
AgaBooga - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
Well, its good to see DVD drive coverage also being added to reviews along with occasional LCD screen reviews. I think this will help AT reach out to more people than just those interested in computer components like the CPU, motherboard, video card, etc.blackjack - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
I already own this drive and am very happy with it. I was tempted by the pioneer a06 but the cd-r was only 16x which they could have easily made 32x surely? Apart from a few coasters using imation 2.4x write once dvd+r media, it is quite happy with dvd-r and of course dvd+rw. Yet to get hold of some decent tdk dvd+r but they should be fine at 6-8x.All in all, given its good price (£158 + VAT), I have no complaints although plextor hardware does not like roxio easy cd creator (although I'm getting quite used to nero now)
Anonymous User - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
Will the buying code of "Anandtech280" works :)KristopherKubicki - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link
Oops. Thanks #8: Fixed.As far as the question about booktypes: Nero, ImgTools, and pretty much everything else we tried did not allow us to change the booktype. We have a pretty strong suspicion that a future firmware upgrade will fix this though.
Cheers,
Kristopher