Plextor 708A: First exclusive look at 8X DVD+R

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. Today, Plextor sent us a drive that truly claims to revolutionize DVDR burning for at least the remainder of the year, and probably some time into the next.

Back in July, Philips (DVD+R forum) officially announced the DVD+R format specification, part of which was to increase the recording speed standard to 8X. DVD+R 8X is a little different from other recording speed standards, as the drive starts burning at 6X CLV, then jumps to 8X CLV for the outer surface. So even though, technically, the drive does not obtain a sustained 8X burn, we see burn times around 8 or 9 minutes for full 4.38GB of data. What really sweetens the pie is that 4X capable DVD+R media should burn fine at 8X.