DailyTech - Plextor Releases 18X Dual Format DVD Burner

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Hardware Plextor Releases 18X Dual Format DVD Burner
Kristopher Kubicki (Blog) - February 13, 2006 1:31 AM

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15 comment(s) - last by OvErHeAtInG.. on Feb 20 at 7:07 PM

Plextor's newest can do 18X on single layer DVDR media, 10X on DVD+R DL

If four minute DVD-R burn times were not fast enough for you, Plextor just announced the E-IDE PX-760A DVD recorder. The drive is capable of burning 18X speeds on 16X certified DVD-R and DVD+R media. Furthermore, the drive obtains 10X speeds on supported DVD+R dual layer media, and 6x record speeds on DVD-R dual layer media. The drive is capable of burning DVD-RW, DVD-VR and CD-R/W media as well.

SATA versions of the PX-760 are due out later this year, but Plextor is releasing an external USB version called the PX-760UF, at the same time as the E-IDE drive. The drive features a 2MB buffer and Plextor's PowerRec technology. PowerRec dynamically adjusts the laser intensity and burn speed to correct impurities in the recordable media.

The new PX-760 drives will retail for $119 USD in April of this year. The retail package comes with Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 and Plextor's Plextools software.

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SATA

By DigitalFreak on 2/13/2006 8:28:56 AM , Rating: 3

So where are all the SATA DVD-ROM/DVD burners? With every chipset out in the last year or two supporting at least 4 SATA ports, you'd think they would be more wide spread.

RE: SATA

By rpsgc on 2/13/2006 10:52:41 AM , Rating: 3

This one will be available in SATA. Samsung also release a new SATA DVD+-RW, the SH-W163 (TS-H553A):

http://samsung.com/Products/OpticalDiskDrive/DVDWr...

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RE: SATA

By Missing Ghost on 2/13/2006 11:39:48 AM , Rating: 2

And people say that there is no booting supported on them.

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RE: SATA

By sprockkets on 2/13/2006 1:17:26 PM , Rating: 1

Some BIOSes cannot boot off of SATA optical drives.

Anyone have more sucess with those drives under linux? I have only had it work under Knoppix 3.7, and nothing so far with the 2.6 kernel, at least out of the box.

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Tempting, but...

By redbone75 on 2/14/2006 7:15:40 AM , Rating: 2

I'm a bit wary of Plextor products. I know firsthand that the performance is great, but had a bad experience with one. Bought the 708a in Jan. '04 (paid 200 for it!) and it worked beautifully for just over one year. Just crapped out on me after one friggin' year, and just after the warranty expired, no less. Got the NEC 3520 as my replacement and was a bit disappointed with the relative performance. At 8x the Plextor would burn a full dvd+/-r disc at just a hair over 7 minutes consistently, whereas the NEC would take around 9 minutes. I'm mentioning 8x b/c the 708a was a 8x max burner. I'm using 16x media now with my 3520 most of the time now, of course. Love the performance of Plextor's products, but at the asking price would rather put dual dvd burners in my system. If my 3520 fails, at least I'm comforted in knowing I paid less than $50 for it.

BTW, I still have an old TDK 32x CD-RW drive that's still running strong.

RE: Tempting, but...

By ewvaname on 2/18/2006 8:37:35 AM , Rating: 2

I've had excellent experience with Plextor products and customer service over the last 15 years or so. All 5 of the burners I've purchased throughout that time period continue to run strong and reliably. The company even replaced a drive beyond the warranty period with no hassle and threw in a free black face-plate :)

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RE: Tempting, but...

By OvErHeAtInG on 2/20/2006 7:07:01 PM , Rating: 2

Yep, always worth it to call up even if the warranty's out when a drive goes bad.

For me, the only advantage my NEC 3500 has over a plex is that it's available with a silver bezel to match my case. (Now that someone mentioned it, it is really good at reading just about anything disc-shaped.) The prospect of a quality SATA Plextor is really tempting, I guess I could do a little modding if it's not avail in silver :)

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Not worth the price...

By SGTPan on 2/13/2006 3:15:49 AM , Rating: 2

...for a little bit faster burns. Unless someone comes to me and asks for it specifically, or simply wants the fastest DVD burner on the market, I'll stick with NEC's latest models. They're almost a third the price, (more bang for your buck) and come with Nero software, which I prefer to Roxio's offerings.

RE: Not worth the price...

By ToeCutter on 2/13/2006 12:56:05 PM , Rating: 2

Roger that!

The NECs also have excellent ECC ability for reading FUBAR'ed discs...

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I'll wait for the benchmarks

By Plasmoid on 2/13/2006 7:14:26 AM , Rating: 2

Considering current Drives struggle to burn at consistent speeds much of the time, and im stuck with 8x discs anyway, im not too concerned.

RE: I'll wait for the benchmarks

By shortylickens on 2/14/2006 11:31:17 PM , Rating: 2

Thats kind of what I was thinking. I must be one of the few people left in the world who still believe single-speed burns are the best anyway.

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2MB buffer ... <83ms @ 18xDVD (24.3MB/s)

By tygrus on 2/13/2006 8:04:17 AM , Rating: 2

Most modern (enterprise/desktop) HD's are getting 8MB cache or more. It's risky that it may have to wait for disk I/O or another thread to release the CPU. I'd be much happier if they made drives with 16MB or more to maintan a fast burn (and fast read latter). XP has a habit of IO storm and unexpected pauses. They should be designed (drive&software) to avoid te delay of changing layer during playback of movies (ie. enough read ahead).

RE: 2MB buffer ... <83ms @ 18xDVD (24.3MB/s)

By slashbinslashbash on 2/18/2006 11:34:34 AM , Rating: 2

Yeah, no kidding. A DVD burner with 2MB cache seems like it's just asking for trouble. IIRC my old 32X Matsushita CD-RW drive has 8MB.

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No chipset for SATA burner

By PandaBear on 2/13/2006 2:29:59 PM , Rating: 2

I think the problem is no one has a SATA burner chipset developed yet (the one in the drive, not the one on your MB). It takes some time and since the bulk volume are still on PATA, the chipset vendor are still doing improvement on the optics and ECC than on the interface.

We should see them soon though.

Plextor

By Nocturnal on 2/13/2006 10:06:29 PM , Rating: 2

IIRC they were supposed to release this a while ago (not that long ago) but it was pushed back due to dev problems. I'm glad they didn't rush it out the door like the original Plextor 716A. That thing had so many problems it wasn't even funny.