Holiday Shopping Roundup: Eight Dual Format Recordable DVD Drives
by Kristopher Kubicki on December 11, 2003 10:54 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Plextor 708A
Currently, the Plextor 708A is “the” drive to beat. We had one of the first samples of this drive back in September and we were thoroughly impressed. Since we did a full review on the drive once before, we won't spend too much time beating around the bush here. Due to a newer firmware release (1.03), we will be running all of the benchmarks on the unit again.Quickly, we will try to sum up some of the features of the Plextor 708A. Feel free to check out the full review from September if you would like a more indepth analysis. The bundled media with the drive is just average — a demo of Dantz Retrospect, Roxio DVDMax, Easy CD & DVD Creator and one DVD+R. (Compare this to Nu Tech's DDW-081, which comes with the entire SonicDVD suite). We found the documentation with the drive to be excellent. The 60-page manual is a clear indication that Plextor had ample time to prepare and QA this unit during production.
| Plextor 708A DVD-/+R Drive | |
| Interface | IDE |
| CD Write Speed | 40X, 32X, 24X (CAV) 16X, 12X, 8X, 4X (CLV) |
| CD Rewrite Speed | 24X, 16X (CAV) 12X, 8X, 4X (CLV) |
| CD Read Speed | 40X Max (CAV) |
| DVD-R Write Speed | 4X, 2X, 1X (CLV) |
| DVD-RW Rewrite Speed | 2X, 1X (CLV) |
| DVD+R Write Speed | 8X (Z-CLV) 4X, 2X (CLV) |
| DVD+RW Rewrite Speed | 4X, 2.4X (CLV) |
| DVD Read Speed | 12X (CAV) |
| Supported Modes | DAO / DAO-RAW 16 & 96 TAO SAO / SAO 16 & 96 Packet Write Multi-Session |
| Supported Formats | DVD+R (DAO, incremental, seq) DVD+RW (random) DVD-R (DAO, incremental, seq) DVD-RW (random) CD-R, CD-RW, CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-ROM XA, Mixed Mode, CD Extra Photo CD, CD Text, Bootable CD, UDF |
| Access Time | CD: 130ms DVD: 180ms |
| Buffer | 2MB |
Not only does the drive boast 8X writing speed for DVD+R, but it also claims 12X DVD read speeds. As far as specifications go, this drive outperforms the Nu Tech DDW-081 with dual write capability. The access time is a little too high for DVD's, but we will get more into that later during the rest of the roundup.
We should also mention that we were very impressed with Plextor's PowerRec II technology. Even though all of the burners we are looking at today have some on-the-fly laser optimization, PowerRec II is probably the most promising.
The Plextor 708A uses the LC897490 chipset, which is identical to the chipset in the Sony DRU-530A. It will be interesting to see which drive has a more capable mechanical solution.
Unfortunately, our reigning champion is not perfect. Obviously, the DVD Access time is a little high, bitsetting is not (officially) supported and there have been quite a few reports of poor DVD-R compatibility. We have determined that the burner has no default strategies for cheaper media. Some of the media we bought online simply does not work with this burner (the cheap stuff; some disks we tried didn't even have MIDs!). On the other hand, the cheapest DVD+Rs that we could find burned quite well in this burner. We have always been impressed that the 708A sees 4X available write descriptors for 1X and 2X rated DVD+Rs. Does the 708A have enough to hold onto the crown against its most formidable competitor yet, Sony?
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rms - Saturday, December 13, 2003 - link
Why was there no identification/information on the physical drive used in these products? I'm disappointed.rms
artifex - Saturday, December 13, 2003 - link
Have you noticed that if you rip the ISO with DVDD, you need to burn it with that? I had trouble reading a DVD that I burned using Nero, but when I went back to DVDD for the burn it worked fine.KristopherKubicki - Saturday, December 13, 2003 - link
I use K3B and DVDTools for linux as well. Nero is good, depends on what you end up doing with it though. For ISOs and GIs, DVD Decryptor and Alcohol 120% are my particular choice of poisons.Cheers,
Kristopher
sprockkets - Saturday, December 13, 2003 - link
Haha, for some stupid reason that Sonic Software that came with my Lite On DVD+RW only drive said a new disc was already full or something stupid. Used nero from my other drive and works fine. Nero rocks, of course, under linux with SuSE and K3B and DVDtools it works fine too. Burns for me took around 13.5 min.KristopherKubicki - Friday, December 12, 2003 - link
Belzer, I emailed Nic about it. I was in fact using 2.24Kristopher
artifex - Friday, December 12, 2003 - link
Hmmm turns out my drive is identical to the BTC 1004IM. What can I say? I don't see any drives using that base in the comparison either, though I hardly feel prejudiced against, like the Lite-On people :)Anyway, looks like it does what I need it to, even has Mount Rainier support (My RW5125A didn't according to DVDinfoPro), for 1/2 the Plextor or Sony, so I should live with it for a while, right? I mean... I'm used to burning DVDs at 2.4x anyway, and now I can use the - formats (yuck, if I have to).
Belzer - Friday, December 12, 2003 - link
Kristopher: I think the MCC 003 should be identified as 8x in the latest (2.24) version of DVDInfoPro too.artifex - Friday, December 12, 2003 - link
Jeez, over $10? They must have a built-in Hollywood tax planned.I decided I couldn't wait. Fry's had a weird "Emprex" +- brand on sale for $90 before tax here in Dallas. I figure for under $100, I'll not worry about burning it up before Blu-ray... or whatever competes against it.
I'll let you know how it works... so far I see the websites on the box don't have any info on the drive :( It does seem to have a reasonably complete set of software, though. If nothing else, I can use it a little while and exchange it.
KristopherKubicki - Friday, December 12, 2003 - link
Belzer: Youre probably right. In DVD Info Pro, I got this (14)http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/storage/roundu...
Looks like the discs are just ahead of their time ;)
Kristopher
Belzer - Friday, December 12, 2003 - link
Thanks for the update, Kristopher! Sorry if I sounded rude in my last post.About the Verbatim media:
MCC 001 = 2.4x, MCC 002 = 4x, MCC 003 = 8x
Check Philips' list with approved media:
http://www.licensing.philips.com/services/db/midco...
or check this thread:
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=13821
or check Plextor's list of compatible media:
http://www.plextor.com/english/support/media_708Co...
or check for yourself with DVDIdentifier:
http://dvd.identifier.cdfreaks.com/
Verbatim probably hadn't the new 8x box art available yet so my guess is that they put the sample discs they sended to you in an old case.