In House Review - Plextor PlexWriter PX-W4824TA 48/24/48 CD-

[Ian]

Most likely it is a bug with CD Speed. It wouldn't be the first.

The one thing you should ask Plextor (I'm not sure about this) is whether or not Plextools is reading the leadout or not. Is it just ripping the tracks? I'm betting it is.

If you're going to try to make an exact copy of the audio CD want the drive to be able to read everything including the tracks, leadin, leadout, and subchannel stuff like CD-Text.

[The_King]

BTW, Ian, (just curious) does your Plex 48x unit have a new Compact Disc ReWriteable *Ultra Speed* or just the old ordinary *High Speed* logo on the front bezel ??

[dodecahedron]

aaaah, the fan...gotta luv the lil' sucker ! guess the 24x was the last one that came with it...

actually, the 24x was already without a fan.
(i think only a few, the first produced, did have a fan. soon after they stopped putting the fan in).

[eliminator]

Yep I had that one - was japanese too !

[Ian]

BTW, Ian, (just curious) does your Plex 48x unit have a new Compact Disc ReWriteable *Ultra Speed* or just the old ordinary *High Speed* logo on the front bezel ??

Doh! Ultra Speed. I didn't look that close at it before.

[eliminator]

lol, neither did I til' now.
My TDK 48x...dang, it is real tiny !! ...nope, just sez "hi speed"...

[The_King]

New Ultra Speed logo eh?!!

I seen that in the review it said "High Speed" and I thought it would have changed; but even with 24X rewrite, the F1 still has High speed logo....

[Alexandrus]

I guess I am a bit dissapointed with the new Plextor drive. It is not as fast as I would have expected, nor as solid as a LITE-ON.
But I am not sure about that EFM. The CloneCD site says it writes the EFM almost corectly, just like the PX-W4012A and PX-W2410A, while the newer LITE-ON drives write the EFM perfectly.
So I guess I will be waiting for the LTR-48246S drive.

[eliminator]

why wait alex ? - you can go out & get a TDK right now..??

[Alexandrus]

That's true, but I'd rather wait for the real McCoy

[cdrfreak]

Most likely it is a bug with CD Speed.

I don't buy this. If the test gives normal results with all drives except this single drive then I would blame it on the drive.

In theory a drive should be able to read the full lead-out (ie. 1:30.00 = 90 seconds).
But most drives simply return an error when you're trying to read beyond the data area.

[dodecahedron]

I recall Plextor being extremely adamant about Zone-CLV being superior to P-CAV and Full-CAV technology – What happened to all those theories? Did Plextor forget all that they preached about?

Nope. Check out this document:
http://www.plextor.be/English/pdf/The%20Process%20of%20Writing.pdf

Mostly marketing stuff but interesting to read anyway.

thanks for the link, cdrfreak. interesting indeed.

coolcdrman, what is LSI?

i have a question about the Plex 48x review:
in the Nero "Choose Recorder" screenshot we can see that PoweRec can be enabled/disabled in Nero. this was not the case in the 40x internal and external Plextor drives (at least according to Ian's reviews).
Plex 48x internal - reviewed with Nero 5.5.9.9
Plex 40x internal - reviewed with Nero 5.5.7.2
Plex 40x external - reviewed with Nero 5.5.9.0
so i can't figure out if this is a software issue (PoweRec can be disabled/enabled in all of these drives if you use the latest 5.5.9.9) or a hardware issue.
anyone know?

[lppnet]

can anyone comment on the tdk48 vs plextor48 writting quality??? which one is the best???

[The_King]

PoweRec can only be disabled on the PX-W4824TA/U, earlier models don't support this.

For sure the PleXWriter 48/24/48A has better writing quality than the Lite-On based TDK...

[coolcdrman]

dodecahedron LSI = Large Scale Integration.

LSI is used to describe microchips with thousands of transistors. In the CD-RW industry this refers to the onboard DSP (digital signal processor) that controllers the writing strategies, i.e., CAV, PCAV, and CLV recordings.

[dodecahedron]

ok forgot about that one.
if you had said VLSI - no problem !!!

so basically what your'e saying is that it was hardware engineering issue ... and so no firmware will be able to fix it.

[dodecahedron]

i have a question about the Plex 48x review:
in the Nero "Choose Recorder" screenshot we can see that PoweRec can be enabled/disabled in Nero. this was not the case in the 40x internal and external Plextor drives (at least according to Ian's reviews).
Plex 48x internal - reviewed with Nero 5.5.9.9
Plex 40x internal - reviewed with Nero 5.5.7.2
Plex 40x external - reviewed with Nero 5.5.9.0
so i can't figure out if this is a software issue (PoweRec can be disabled/enabled in all of these drives if you use the latest 5.5.9.9) or a hardware issue.
anyone know?

PoweRec can only be disabled on the PX-W4824TA/U, earlier models don't support this.

well, now with the new firmware 1.03 on my Plex 40x internal and Nero 5.5.9.17, the "Choose Recorder" window has a checkbox for enabling/disabling PoweRec.

if The_King is right and this is a hardware issue, then it must be the firmware update from 1.02 to 1.03. any other plextor owners can say? specifically, does anyone have the 40x external drive with the 1.03 firmware? in Ian's review the drive had 1.02 firmware and no control of VariRec. anyone with this drive and 1.03 can check if the checkbox appears now?

(if i have time i will go back to an old version of Nero to see if the checkbox is still there, confirm this is hardware/firmware controlled).

[The_King]

That is correct, Plextor have added the disable PoweRec feature on the PX-W4012TA/TU series as of firmware v1.03.