Plextor PX-716A With DVD-R DL Support Released In Japan

by **Ian** on Thu Dec 02, 2004 4:47 pm

Well.. its an OEM PX-716A from Buffalo:

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/akiba/ho ... 16fbs.html

Oddly enough, its SATA and IDE.

by **Ian** on Thu Dec 02, 2004 4:48 pm

Nevermind.. it looks like they're adding this feature later with a firmware update. Why they advertise it on the box is beyond me...

by **hoxlund** on Thu Dec 02, 2004 5:00 pm

how can you have both with one drive? does it have both connectors on back?

by **Ian** on Thu Dec 02, 2004 6:19 pm

hoxlund wrote:how can you have both with one drive? does it have both connectors on back?

I'm guessing its a removable IDE to SATA bridge. I mean, that's all that was in the 712SA.

by **Noua** on Thu Dec 02, 2004 6:49 pm

hoxlund wrote
how can you have both with one drive? does it have both connectors on back?

It's just another way that Plextor found to make this drive a less fiasco...
But then again why one would by this drive (SATA or IDE) if it can't produce a decent burn? #-o

by **HardwareHarry** on Thu Dec 02, 2004 7:14 pm

Plextor PX-716A Made in China ?!

I'm curious.

For IDE and SATA see this link for the image:

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/akiba/ho ... dvmp1.html

by **Halc** on Fri Dec 03, 2004 3:55 am

Noua,

why would anyone buy Optorite, BTC and zillion of other mfg and for-sale brands?

Just because they are in the store :(

90% of the buyers have no idea about the quality of the gear they are buying (my guess).

I'd also venture a guess that clearly more than half of sellers have no idea of the quality of the gear they are selling.

They may have preconceptions, but objective knowledge, nope :)

So, it will sell, because it's there on the market, it has "both sata & pata" and it sort of has "dual layer dvd-r".

regards,
halcyon

PS Sata vs ide is a misnomer. They are both IDE drives, even if under SATA or ATA connectors. The controller is on the IDE drive, ATA or SATA "controllers" are in fact host bus adapters, nothing more. That's also one important reason why the sata/ata adapters can work.

by **hoxlund** on Fri Dec 03, 2004 4:23 am

Halc wrote:Noua,

I'd also venture a guess that clearly more than half of sellers have no idea of the quality of the gear they are selling.

They may have preconceptions, but objective knowledge, nope

trust me, when my customers come in to buy burners and hard drives they leave knowing tons more then when they walked in

by **Noua** on Fri Dec 03, 2004 5:34 am

I also think that the majority of the consumers don't know what they're buying. In fact i beleive that most of the times they don't know what they want... [-o<

I see it all the time... You don't need to go to far cause you have lots of people in the forum asking all sort of thing about Princo media (for example)...

Nevertheless i'm still hopping that this drive can actually work as it should... I'm also on my chair sitting and wainting....

by **Ian** on Fri Dec 03, 2004 9:04 am

Noua wrote:I also think that the majority of the consumers don't know what they're buying. In fact i beleive that most of the times they don't know what they want...

No kidding. Every day we have people posting "Tell me what drive I should buy". When I ask what features they need, they say "I don't know".

by **alexnoe** on Fri Dec 03, 2004 9:21 am

I know many people who ask me that in person, and who don't know either which features they need. My answer is always "LG": It has every feature, except for quality scans, and someone who doesn't know what he needs does certainly not need quality scans

by **jberry** on Fri Dec 03, 2004 10:48 am

advertising too....everyone I know has heard of Plextor, LG, and teh various "by Porsche" designed external drives.

Best drive going now is the Benq 1620....nobody ever heard of Benq around here.

People buy what they see and touch, not what they can mail order; despite what boards such as these recommend.

by **Noua** on Fri Dec 03, 2004 11:24 am

Indeed you're right... But there's one drive that i haven't seen many complains... It's the Pioneer A08. In fact i've spooke to some friends and they report that you can throw almost anything at it that it will burn and good burns... I personally still believe that the A06 is the best model that Pioneer has but I have one myself so... :roll:

Of course the Plextor 716 is supose to be the next generation drive :^o

the first to give DL - R... If it doens't give good burns on SL media how can it give in DL media????? #-o

by **dolphinius_rex** on Fri Dec 03, 2004 11:43 am

I have a complaint about the Pioneer DVR-108.... it can't burn Optodisc 4x DVD-Rs properly. For that matter, ever since firmware 1.16 for the DVR-107 it couldn't burn them properly either! The DVR-107 can burn Optodisc 8x DVD-Rs quite well, and I believe the 108 can as well... but the 107 USED to be able to burn Optodisc 4x DVD-Rs properly!!

The BenQ DW1620 and the NEC 3500a both can burn Optodisc 4x DVD-Rs with superb quality, so it's a little frustrating that Pioneer can't get it right. Of course, Optodisc is one of my main staples for DVDR media.

by **alexnoe** on Fri Dec 03, 2004 11:47 am

It burns the Optodisc 4x -R I once tried

by **BMR** on Fri Dec 03, 2004 1:32 pm

dolphinius_rex wrote:I have a complaint about the Pioneer DVR-108.... it can't burn Optodisc 4x DVD-Rs properly. For that matter, ever since firmware 1.16 for the DVR-107 it couldn't burn them properly either! The DVR-107 can burn Optodisc 8x DVD-Rs quite well, and I believe the 108 can as well... but the 107 USED to be able to burn Optodisc 4x DVD-Rs properly!!

The BenQ DW1620 and the NEC 3500a both can burn Optodisc 4x DVD-Rs with superb quality, so it's a little frustrating that Pioneer can't get it right. Of course, Optodisc is one of my main staples for DVDR media.

Perhaps Optodisc is not in Pioneer's good books right now and hence Pioneer is not overly motivated to support their media with any great fervour.

BMR

by **Ian** on Fri Dec 03, 2004 1:48 pm

Most Taiwanese manufacturers don't seem to be in Pioneer's good books. They always seem to drag their feet when adding support for their media.

by **dolphinius_rex** on Fri Dec 03, 2004 2:07 pm

Ian wrote:Most Taiwanese manufacturers don't seem to be in Pioneer's good books. They always seem to drag their feet when adding support for their media.

Well, Pioneer officialy certified Optodisc's 4x DVD-RWs, so they can't be having THAT many problems with each other...

The DVR-108's support for Optodisc 4x is atrocious! The 107 even with the later firmware that screwed up support is still better. But Pioneer seems to burn Optodisc 8x DVDRs ok, both DVD+R and DVD-R.

by **RJW** on Sat Dec 04, 2004 7:52 am

dolphinius_rex wrote:Well, Pioneer officialy certified Optodisc's 4x DVD-RWs, so they can't be having THAT many problems with each other...

You are forgetting a few things here.
First you have 2 divisions one is about the verification and one is for the actuall drive. That verification tested it doesn't mean that the drive manufacturers also got (enough) media to fix support.

dolphinius_rex wrote:The DVR-108's support for Optodisc 4x is atrocious! The 107 even with the later firmware that screwed up support is still better. But Pioneer seems to burn Optodisc 8x DVDRs ok, both DVD+R and DVD-R.

I wouldn't blame Pioneer for not supporting Optodisc 4x. The variance in quality make Ritek's variance seems to look nice. OUCH !!!

That the later firmware support screwed up the support is thanks to batch variances. What if I try to update the support and the companny launches just another version from which you don't get samples and from which the parameters are not completely matching the older media for which you just fine tuned the drive.

Also some disc manufacturer just send only very early first pressed samples to drive manufacturers for optimalisation.
Now some drive manufacturers think these are enough and base there strategies just on these and not what on what's really hitting the market.
Luckilly more and more compannies seem to take in account that the drive has to work with the media on the market and not with there vancy early first fresh stamper pressed disc's they get.

On the other hand some drive manufacturers are really slow and selective when it comes to support. Non Japanese and non big taiwanese disc manufacturers are quite screwed when it comes to support unless there's some big important companny standing behind it !!!
(Now I'm not saying that they really should spend a lot of time on SKY Media but with SKY it's really the product that seems to be very poor manufacturerd !. And there are some other examples ! But compannies who make decent products are sometimes very poor supported !)

Optodisc only got full approval for +r from philips on 2.4x DVD+RW and
a provisional approval on 4x DVD+R. Which makes me think: Why nothing for 8x DVD+R and 4x DVD+RW ?
And why was the 4x DVD+R just provisional approved ?

by **dolphinius_rex** on Sat Dec 04, 2004 5:28 pm

Well I agree that there is quite some variance in quality from Optodisc, it's actually not quite as bad as the variance I have seen from MCC code media (official MCC code media, not hong kong made stuff). Now this could be blamed on the fact that so many plants make it for MCC now, but certain levels of quality control should be in place for it none the less. I have never seen a bad Optodisc 4x DVD-R burn on the Benq DW1620, or the NEC 2500 or NEC 3500. As for Optodisc 4x DVD+Rs, they were very poorly supported the whole way along, and only the NEC 2500a ever was able to burn them well, according to my own tests. Optodisc 8x DVD+Rs however have shown a great deal better support from many drive makers, and I was really surprised by this! So why 4x +R had provisional approval, and 8x +R nothing, I can't even guess the reason. Optodisc has created quite some trouble for me because of using both TYG02 and OPTODISCR008 codes on their 8x DVD-R media.... mainly because some drives will burn 1 really well, and some will burn the other very well, but not too many drives will burn both! The Pioneer DVR-108 seems to like burning then TYG02 code discs at 12x, with surprisingly good results, considering it's Optodisc overclocked. The Pioneer DVR-107 gives VERY impressive results on OPTODISCR008 code discs when burned at 8x as well! I still haven't tried the OPTODISCR008 code media in the DVR-108 though.

As for Optodisc's policy on sending media to drive makers, I'm not sure on all the specifics, since Optodisc won't tell me all the little secret details (or even tell some of their own reps, who don't "need" to know!). So what I know has to come from drive manufacturers. I'm pretty confident that Optodisc continues to send media all the way through their production of that media type, for continued fine tuning and testing on the drive maker's part... or at least that is the impression that I got from BenQ. On the other hand, this could also be BenQ *asking* for more and more media for better fine tuning. Since BenQ succeeds so well with Optodisc media, I can only assume it is put to good use! :wink:

by **shimman** on Thu Dec 09, 2004 1:20 pm

btw, buffalo includes a pata to sata signal converter dongle & pata version of 716a

by **VEFF** on Thu Dec 09, 2004 5:42 pm

Nice about DVD-R DL support.

I figure that by the time DL media prices come down, I'll have an 8X DL burner anyway and will have sold my 16X SL / 4X DL current DVD burner.

That is why I couldn't resist a rebadged NEC ND-3500A (Mad Dog) for only US$44 after 30 rebate and coupon today, including $4.20 in tax.
I was originally going to get a PX-716A, but couldn't justify spending more than double that for a burner that I'll be selling in 4 months or so.

by **dolphinius_rex** on Thu Dec 09, 2004 11:43 pm

Dual Layer prices will come down very soon :wink:

Think January / February

by **VEFF** on Fri Dec 10, 2004 1:43 am

dolphinius_rex wrote:Dual Layer prices will come down very soon

Think January / February

Thanks for the info.
But by how much will they drop in one or two months...

I recently bought TDK Ricoh DVD+R media for 20 cents per disc after rebate and Fuji 8X Taiyo Yuden for 40 cents (no rebates).
I don't need DL media to be anywhere near that cheap, but $5 a disc, for example, would still be too much for my needs.

by **hoxlund** on Fri Dec 10, 2004 1:48 am

i still laugh my ass off when i pass my dual layer media on the sales floor $34 for 3 pack of dvd+r DL

scary thing is we had 4 orginally and now only have 2 left, so i guess theres at least 2 suckers out in colorado springs area

Plextor PX-716A With DVD-R DL Support Released In Japan

Plextor PX-716A With DVD-R DL Support Released In Japan

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