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Hardware Plextor Announces Blu-ray, HD DVD Drives
Purav Sanghani - February 11, 2008 2:52 PM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 52 comment(s) - last by wetlegs6.. on Feb 14 at 8:08 AM

Plextor PX-B300SA

Plextor PX-B920SA
Next-generation burners to hit the European market by end of month

Recent news suggests the Blu-ray optical media format used for audio, video and storage is taking control of the market place as movie studios and movie rental services such as Warner and Netflix are flipping the script on HD DVD and siding exclusively with Blu-ray. However, despite HD DVD's apparent struggles to stay in the race, many hardware manufacturers are still committed to both formats.

Plextor Europe is suiting up for the game by launching two new optical drives, the PX-B920SA CD/DVD/Blu-ray writer and HD DVD reader and the PX-B300SA CD/DVD writer and Blu-ray/HD DVD reader.

The PX-B920SA is the jack of (almost) all trades as it features CD-R/RW write speeds of 40x/24x and DVD R/RW write speeds of up to 16x/8x. Additionally, the PX-B920SA is able to write to BD-R/RE media at up to 4x/2x and read the media at up to 8x speeds depending on the format. The PX-B920SA also has the ability to read HD DVD media at 3x speeds.

The drive features a SATA interface with a 4 MB buffer and also features Lightscribe technology which is not always the seller for these devices but more of a luxury feature.

The PX-B300SA does the usual CD/DVD reading and writing duties at the same speeds, however it doubles as only a reader for Blu-ray and HD-DVD media at up to 6x and 3x speeds respectively. The PX-B300SA also features a SATA interface and a 4 MB buffer along with the Lightscribe technology.

Both the PX-B920SA and the PX-B300SA will launch in European markets by the end of February with no decided US launch date so far. Pricing information is not yet available but is expected to be a premium over OEM-type devices from companies such as LG.

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Plextor Quality?
By TomZ on 2/11/2008 3:23:36 PM , Rating: 2
Plextor used to make some of the best optical drives available, but over the past couple of years, I get the impression they've suffered from a "quality crisis."

(Typed on a machine containing a recently-failed Plextor drive.)

Who makes the best drives these days?




RE: Plextor Quality?
By dever on 2/11/2008 3:34:26 PM , Rating: 2
I've had no problems with the last couple of LiteOn drives I've purchased, but these drives (not HD) have become nearly a commodity, so I usually just go with whatever model has the best egg to price ratio.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By ionoxx on 2/11/2008 3:48:53 PM , Rating: 2
Thats funny. Every single Lite-on drive I've ever used (note: I did not say owned) has failed at a fairly young age.

Lite-on DVD±RW Lifespans:
1-3 Months: 2
4-6 Months: 2
6-12 Months: 3
12-15 Months: 3

Out of the 10 Lite-on drives drives i've used... none of them lasted longer than 15 months. And no... I don't burn 15 disks a day.

My best luck so far has been BenQ by far, followed by Pioneer and NEC.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By AntiM on 2/11/2008 4:10:33 PM , Rating: 4
I'm in the same boat. Every Lite-on drive I've ever had has failed within 2 years. I bought a Plextor, hoping it wouldn't fail, but alas, it has failed me as well. It did last a little over 2 years though. I don't burn that many CDs or DVDs; I'm figuring that all CD/DVD burners fail after about 2 years for no good reason.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By GaryJohnson on 2/11/2008 4:53:10 PM , Rating: 3
I've been running a Plextor 712SA since 11/01/2004.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By KamiXkaze on 2/11/2008 8:35:40 PM , Rating: 2
ditto here same drive know problem

KxK


RE: Plextor Quality?
By rykerabel on 2/11/2008 5:41:05 PM , Rating: 2
yeah, I hadn't thought about it, but I do have a BenQ thats awesome and I also remember really good reviews on their drives too.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By TomZ on 2/11/08, Rating: 0
RE: Plextor Quality?
By aos007 on 2/11/2008 6:05:41 PM , Rating: 2
BenQ was bought out two years ago by a competitor. I think it was Liteon but I'm not sure. Afterwards, naturally, their drives disappeared. There was a lot of sobbing on enthusiast sites about it as they were well liked. I only owned one - the 1655 - and my experience was less than good to put it mildly (that drive was making coasters out of genuine Taio Yudens, it doesn't get much worse than that).


RE: Plextor Quality?
By Slash3 on 2/11/2008 11:04:49 PM , Rating: 2
Another BenQ here, a DW1640 burner. It's worked great although recently the tray sometimes gets stuck in opening or closing and needs to be triggered a second time. No biggie, still does the job.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By Jedi2155 on 2/11/2008 8:19:25 PM , Rating: 2
Actually, I have purchased and used around 6+ NEC's and at least that many Lite-on's but I haven't had a single Lite-on fail while I've had 2 NEC's giving issues. One involved the CD burning laser and the other was a DVD read issue.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By eek2121 on 2/11/2008 9:58:57 PM , Rating: 1
I'm running a lite on dvd drive i've had since 2001. I bought a lite on dvd burner last year. Best damn drives i've ever owned. Had a pioneer CDRW take a shit after 2 years of operation prior to that.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By JustTom on 2/11/2008 10:51:31 PM , Rating: 2
Note to self: Self, do not let ionoxx use my Lite-on DVD writer.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By Samus on 2/11/2008 11:46:57 PM , Rating: 2
I've definately had the best luck with my BenQ's.

That's probably why Plextor drives are based on BenQ hardware (many BenQ's can be flashed with Plextor firmware)


RE: Plextor Quality?
By PAPutzback on 2/12/2008 7:30:33 AM , Rating: 2
Checking you down would not of made much sense because no one would no why.

So it took you ten failed drives to figure out that the brand of drives you were using were crap?


RE: Plextor Quality?
By wetlegs6 on 2/14/2008 8:08:12 AM , Rating: 2
I'm still using a 3 year old LiteOn 52x32x52 CD burner, runs like a beauty.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By 9nails on 2/12/2008 9:59:04 AM , Rating: 2
Sony drives have been my poison. I've had 2 fail on me in a short time.

I have Plextor's that still work, but sitting on a shelf because I don't need a 4x CD Reader in this DVD world!

My latest hard drive was a Lite-On. (Plextor didn't have LightScribe as a feature in any drive that I could find at New Egg.) No problems with the Lite-On drive (in 4 months) that I can report.

Light Scribe kind of sucks, as it turns out. I can see why Plextor has opted out of the Light Scribe inclusion until now. Light Scribe is slow (up to 18 minutes to burn an image) and it's contrast isn't that good.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By Oregonian2 on 2/11/2008 4:56:52 PM , Rating: 2
I agree. I've still my PX-716A (or some such number) which was the best DVD writer drive made I think (I've also another new drive of other make for my backup drive).

Since then, plextor has reorganized at least once and I think it was related to manufacturing or lack thereof. If they're now a design-house that would be fine, but I know they've been OEM'ing at least some models -- so I'm not sure what's going on with them. I was willing to pay two to three times the competitor's price for a higher quality product -- but I'm not so sure that's what they provide now.

Anybody have any hard info? I just get ambiguous press releases here and there as to what they're up to.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By Capsaicin on 2/11/2008 4:59:02 PM , Rating: 2
My old Plextor CD-R started chunking out discs that couldn't be read (reliably) by my Plextor DVD+/-RW. My Lite-On DVD-ROMs could read them without errors (although they would slow down in the same places the DVD+/-RW wouldn't [always] read). The DVD+/-RW couldn't install WoW, either (funky copy protection?), while the Lite-On drives could. I haven't had any trouble with burned DVD+Rs so far.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By aos007 on 2/11/2008 6:02:05 PM , Rating: 2
My 716A Plextor died about a year ago and I did a lot of research but was unable to find anything comparable. Plextor totally destroyed their brand name over the last few years.

A reasonable choice seems to be a Pioneer burner. They consistently get good reviews and my own experience is that they produce excellent quality burns regardless of media used, especially on Verbatim dual layer disks. They have also been involved with DVD drives since early days (my first DVD drive was a slot-load Pioneer back when a reader was $150 and only a few rental stores carried DVD movies). Unfortunately they do not have the scanning support and recently I found they are bad at reading some disks burned years ago. For that other task - reading - a LiteOn drive is a good choice. kProbe and cdspeed can be used for scanning and it's pretty good at reading old disks (the ones Pioneer fails to read). So my solution ever since Plextor died is to have a Pioneer and a Liteon in my machine. Given current prices (even a year or two ago) this is a fairly painless solution if you have a tower case.

The other burner getting good reviews right now is a Samsung 20X burner (who'd thought?).


RE: Plextor Quality?
By RogueSpear on 2/11/2008 8:27:53 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Plextor totally destroyed their brand name over the last few years.

I couldn't agree more. Ages ago I got a SCSI Plextor 8x CD-R (didn't even do CD-RW), but it eventually gave up on me after years of problem free use. I have personally had not one experience with a reliable burner other than that previously mentioned SCSI drive. LiteOn, Sony, Lacie, Samsung, it doesn't matter. Once these things got to be around $30 the manufacturers and the consumers tend to look at them as disposable. Unfortunately it's a much more difficult thing to replace in a laptop. I think that this "how low can you go" pricing has really put the squeeze on Plextor. Most people are willing only to pay as much as necessary, not a penny more, no matter the difference in quality. It seems that a lot of different components these days are suffering. Hard drives seem to be a roll of the dice - either it'll last forever or die within 6 months. Unless you buy a top shelf power supply you're asking for trouble. And what major OEM uses top shelf power supplies?

I love lower prices as much as the next guy, but sometimes they just don't seem worth it.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By Boushh on 2/11/2008 6:33:37 PM , Rating: 2
Never had any problems with the Plextors. I've owned most models from their 12x speed CD writers and up. Infact, I still own most of them and they still work. Not one of them has failed yet. The oldest must be over 7 years old !!

Currenly using a PX-708A, and I must have burned at least 400 DVD's a year with it.

I have never owned another burner in my live ;-)

The LiteOn's are excelent readers. Still have a LiteOn 16x DVD reader and it works like a dream (boought it in 2002).


RE: Plextor Quality?
By Axbattler on 2/11/2008 6:37:03 PM , Rating: 2
The problem is that Plextor started to rebadge drives from other manufacturers some time during the DVD-RW race.

If you want in depth analysis/discussions, then check CDFreaks and CDRLabs. What I often find is that a particular model from a given manufacturer performs very well, but loses their shines for the follow up. For instance the Pioneer 111 is considered one of their best, yet the 112 is not seen as good (and that's ignoring the issue with earlier 112 models which had trouble burning CDs).

If you want a quick answer, the consensus is that the Samsung 203 is probably the most high praised drive available at the moment. That's primarily looking at burn quality perspective. Reliability is a tougher thing to judge. I used my Pioneer 106 for AGES.. and it was still working after I retired it.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By Jammrock on 2/11/2008 9:01:11 PM , Rating: 2
My old Plextor 8x CD-RW lasted for ... 8 years. Bought it in 1998'ish and it finally died in 2006.

My Plextor 12x DVD has been kicking for at least 4 years now without a hiccup.

I can't say for sure about their quality in the past couple of years because I haven't had to replace my current Plextor drive yet.


RE: Plextor Quality?
By livinloud on 2/11/2008 9:19:16 PM , Rating: 2
I think Asus optical Drive are good choices, personnaly used some of them with cheap Disk and higher quality disk without any error even with DL. And it never fails on me.


Slight slant
By geddarkstorm on 2/11/2008 3:21:46 PM , Rating: 5
What's interesting is that both drives will read Blu-ray faster than HD-DVD, and neither will write HD-DVD. It definitely slants their support towards Blu-ray and seems as if HD-DVD was thrown in there just as a selling point of "hey, we support it." It might be support by manufacturers for both formats, but in this case it isn't equal support.




RE: Slight slant
By Owls on 2/11/2008 3:23:27 PM , Rating: 2
writing to HD-DVD media is a known (and painful) issue. Quite frankly, I'm not surprised that they didn't include writing capability for the soon-to-be-dead format.


RE: Slight slant
By TomZ on 2/11/08, Rating: 0
RE: Slight slant
By pomaikai on 2/11/2008 3:48:51 PM , Rating: 3
Using Blue Ray as a backup is not really practical/economical either.


RE: Slight slant
By TomZ on 2/11/2008 3:53:10 PM , Rating: 1
Agreed, but for some people the convenience will outweigh the relative cost differential. For example, if I need to back up 50GB today, that is a pain with plain DVD's.

And for other people, they will just purchase a drive with the expectation that media prices will continue to fall.


RE: Slight slant
By geddarkstorm on 2/11/2008 3:52:44 PM , Rating: 2
That doesn't fully explain the 2x (or more than 2x for the high end drive) faster read speed of Blu-ray over HD-DVD. The decision to create such a disparity, either due to technical issues or market, is interesting from an economic oriented view.


RE: Slight slant
By TomZ on 2/11/08, Rating: 0
RE: Slight slant
By geddarkstorm on 2/11/2008 4:02:44 PM , Rating: 2
If that is really the reasoning they used, then it has interesting implications. Everything is being put on BD--games (ps3), movies, data--whereas, this would imply, HD-DVD is a one trick poney only good at movies. That certainly limits its market.


RE: Slight slant
By ttowntom on 2/11/2008 4:07:08 PM , Rating: 2
DVD-ROM is a "one trick pony" good only for movies too. But that one trick is a huge, huge market.


RE: Slight slant
By geddarkstorm on 2/11/2008 4:16:23 PM , Rating: 2
That's true, however it doesn't have a competitor that seems to be weeding it out. The issue is the survivability of a product, as well as the potential profits one can get by having a large net, and it's interesting to see how the strategies and ideas behind HD-DVD has affected its fate. At least to me at any rate. There's a lot to be learned about what to do and not to do when introducing a product to the market.

On a different note, DVD-ROM and the other types of DVD are still under the same umbrella consortium so it's more like a variation of the same achetype (DVD) than a totally different brand (they do not really compete against each other, but are just different tools). Afterall, the same people are going to be making patent royalties on any of the DVDs you buy from my understanding.


RE: Slight slant
By Goty on 2/11/2008 3:57:18 PM , Rating: 2
Since pretty much all writable HD-DVD media has been withdrawn from the market, it's not a huge surprise that HD-DVD burning was not included as a feature.


Committed to both formats my @$$
By amanojaku on 2/11/2008 3:22:27 PM , Rating: 4
Not including HD-DVD write support while providing Blu-ray write support is a subtle indication of which format Plextor thinks will win.

Not that I care about either format, because I want both to die in favor of full HD download content. Download, NOT streaming. Maybe I'll buy some disks as collector's items, but I'd rather not take up space with DVD's I'll only watch twice in a lifetime.




RE: Committed to both formats my @$$
By Denigrate on 2/11/2008 3:49:26 PM , Rating: 2
Not likely to happen. Not enough DRM for the movie industry's liking.


By mmntech on 2/11/2008 4:42:56 PM , Rating: 2
So true. Us tech people really need to start pushing our respective governments to make DRM illegal. It's not like statutes like the DMCA can't easily be amended. I also feel that the Bill of Rights in the US (and similar laws in other countries) should apply to private organizations' interactions with individuals rather than just between state and citizen. This is due to the huge amount of power these organizations now hold. There are protections in place, but I feel they are not strong enough. In dealings with organizations like Hollywood, ordinary citizens are often forced to prove their innocence rather than the other way around. DRM is an extension of that attitude. They basically view all their customers as potential "criminals" who copy goods to sell on the black market. People aren't outraged enough by this. Sure, media is not a necessity but we need to fight for the principle to fair treatment. What makes the DMCA so infuriating is that it essentially gave the green light for all this garbage. The law is unconstitutional, or at least should be. Governments should only protect consumers against what I mentioned, and should keep their sticky fingers out of the free market. There are far too many government handouts to corporations these days. If they can't compete and innovate without these handouts, they deserve to fail.

Politics aside. BD is the superior format for data storage due to its higher density. It makes sense for a drive to support BD-R rather than HDDVD-R. BD discs are also more durable due to their scratch resistant coating. I don't think HD-DVD has that. Another plus for using BD for archiving.


By Oregonian2 on 2/11/2008 5:01:05 PM , Rating: 2
Could be. Also could be an indication of where they got their designs from -- or support for their designs.

But because perception is mightier than even reality in marketing, Blu-ray has won already, no matter what.


just wondering
By morning on 2/11/2008 5:35:52 PM , Rating: 2
is it just me or don't you think that these new drives
are maybe just rebadged LG's ?

LG GGW-H20L
LG GGC-H20L




RE: just wondering
By morning on 2/11/2008 5:46:32 PM , Rating: 2
similaries ....

it's been a long time since the slogan "pextor - the king of quality" ...
plextor is now king of nothing ... quality has steadily declined in the last years, I think they don't even
design hardware any more - just rebadging something ...
it's not worth the premium price any more ...

this from one of the (have been) greatest plextor fans
on earth .....

I'm still having my old drives and hanging on ...


RE: just wondering
By KamiXkaze on 2/11/2008 10:44:05 PM , Rating: 2
If I remember correctly they stop using there on software after 716a and went with third party software.

KxK


RE: just wondering
By 9nails on 2/12/2008 10:05:28 AM , Rating: 2
Well, I agree with you except for the price. Since they've lowered the quality, they've also lowered the price. Plextor drives have come way down since they were introduced. It's sad because there isn't a drive on the market that target's enthusiasts with quality components. Media drives have been commoditized. Heck, even Apple gave up the drive in the Macbook Air. (Mistake or not, perhaps this will start a new trend of broadband downloads vs. media.)


LG GGW-H20L
By rADo2 on 2/12/2008 4:28:19 AM , Rating: 2
This is just rebranded LG GGW-H20L. Probably the best BD-RE/DVD-RW/CD-RW/HDDVD(ROM) drive on the market.

I own the (LG) unit, and it is excellent. Plextor will just add +30% bigger price sticker, nothing else.

Here is the review:
http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.php?reviewid=...




RE: LG GGW-H20L
By rADo2 on 2/12/2008 4:31:39 AM , Rating: 2
Btw, the LG GGW-H20L unit was $250 + VAT , including complete Cyberlink HiDef software package suite :-)


Monopoly
By joker380 on 2/11/2008 3:33:13 PM , Rating: 1
It seems that right now SONY is paying everyone to support its format and later CONSUMERS will be paying SONY. Lolzzzz. Well you gota pay for your mistakes. The Reason SONY might be benefiting in this war is because it has its own STUDIO as oppose to Toshiba. Any way until this drives are like around 50 dollar i dont think majority of the people will be buying it.




RE: Monopoly
By Owls on 2/11/08, Rating: -1
RE: Monopoly
By beyazkeyat on 2/11/2008 5:53:36 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
It seems that right now SONY is paying everyone to support its format and later CONSUMERS will be paying SONY.


Well yes, you could insert any company in place of SONY and some any product in place of "its format" and you would get how products are sold. It's typical business and not at all a monopoly. Sony is not the only company behind Bluray and they're not the only ones who get paid. Just because they get a little more money than the other manufacturers behind Bluray doesn't mean anything. That's just their luck for having a movie studio. :)

Monopoly is a ridiculously overused word and doesn't apply at all here.


By InternetGeek on 2/11/2008 5:01:09 PM , Rating: 2
Anyone knows if Plextor or another manufacturer plans to sell these units as an external drive?

It sounds to me the best deal today to get into the HD wave without breaking the bank is to get one of these drives and plug your PC to the TV.

I own a HDTV and I can plug my laptop to it using HDMI. I could a) Play stright out from the laptop, but I think I might get a downscaled version of the movie; b) rip the movie, remove all DRM, and play it to the TV that way giving me the whole experience.

What do you guys think?




By griffynz on 2/11/2008 10:48:55 PM , Rating: 2
If the Movie Studios played their trump card they could have put their movies on a format that wasn't available as a PC drive recorder.
Already using AnyDVD HD you can copy a Movie disc (HD/Blu/DVD/CD) to hard drive then turn it into an ISO with no ZONE (hate them!!!) or protection.




hddvd still lagging behind
By rudy on 2/11/2008 11:26:32 PM , Rating: 2
Notice none are HD DVD writers which is what you need to get proliferation of the medium. Toshiba has really botched up this whole issue. RIP HD DVD




"You can bet that Sony built a long-term business plan about being successful in Japan and that business plan is crumbling." -- Peter Moore, 24 hours before his Microsoft resignation











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