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After reporting my initial impressions to Plextor, they sent me a new drive. This PX-716A has a TLA of 0202 and firmware 1.02. This firmware isn't available online (yet).



I reran my tests with Fuji's Taiyo Yuden manufactured 8x DVD+R discs. As you can see, there's still a speed drop at the end. This is probably due to PoweRec.



The Plextools scans look MUCH better than before.



Avg Max Total
PIE 0.12 9 17436
POF - - 0

The KProbe scans are still ugly, but better than before.



Stress test. No problems here.



DVD-R tests coming soon...

Looking better...can't wait to see more.

well well, we see improvments... guess my faith is comming back... Judging what happened is that by the end of the year will probably be in hardware revision 3 and firmware 1.06 so maybe next year i can think on getting this drive... I sure had high expectations on this drive.... they couldn't have gone lower... Oh well we still have the BenQ drive to play with...

Even if Plextor has fixed the problems with the PX-716A, I can't see compelling reason to choose it over the DW1620, especially since the BenQ drive can be had now with good quality whereas with the Plextor users will probably have to wait until the drives with the new TLA start hitting the store shelves. I wonder what is going to happen to all the TLA 0000 and 0101 drives? With the PX-712A it wasn't as much of an issue getting a drive with an older TLA but the pre 0202 716A drives all seem problematic...

Note the double slow down



Plextools. Little higher than DVD+R.. but still very good.



Kprobe. PI is closer to Plextools this time around.



Avg Max Total
PIE 0.82 45 118246
POF - - 0

Stress tests. No problems here.



I'll try some 16x +R media tomorrow. Hopefully I won't see any slow downs.

It'll be nice to see what the drive can do with true 16x media. Too bad MCC004 seems to be the only decent 16x media widely available. TTH02, MXLRG04, SONY16D1, SONYD21, and MAXELL003 don't seem to be available outside of Japan.

that's looking a little less problamatic, but still not great in my opinion. Even the PX-712a is a better drive, and my BenQ DW1620 burns circles around it. I'm glad I didn't rush out and buy this drive like I was about to do until the first scans started showing up (and RMA's being posted!).

Hello!

Still to improve, but Plextor again makes drives with good quality, better with every new FW.

Plextor's always had a rep for good drives, and I've had a number of their SCSI ones and been happy, so I won't be too quick to count them out. But, you can buy a Pioneer 108 or an NEC 3500A for far less at this point, and get better quality burns. Unless they take top honors in all categories, I just can't see spending the additional cash.

Gen-An wrote:It'll be nice to see what the drive can do with true 16x media. Too bad MCC004 seems to be the only decent 16x media widely available. TTH02, MXLRG04, SONY16D1, SONYD21, and MAXELL003 don't seem to be available outside of Japan.

You forget the PhilipsC16 disc's made by CMC. Quality is quite good.
These can be found under FUJI brand at least in Europe !!

Well those graphs are anything but impressive when compared to other drives... If you compare with previous hardware and firmware revisions that's another thing... Big improvments... The problem is that even with big improvments over previous burns the overall performance is stilloff expectations and for this is problematic... Not even with 2x - DL burns will make me (and probably many) buy this drive...

What about the BenQ one? Any news on supporting - DL ?

Ian can you say what were the differences of settings or media that you used when the 2 (burn tests) grapgh were made? I see that on the first one there is a drop of speed at the 4 gb mark... Nothing surprising cause the drive was doing this previously... but on the second graph there is a drop of speed on the 3.5gb mark...

UPDATED: Nevermind that... I've seen that one is -R and the other is +R...

Can you make some test but disabling power rec? I'm curious to see if the drive can go into the 16x.....

Nice.
I am not surprised that it is much better already; I was expecting it actually - they have a reputation to uphold.
They simply rushed the initial drives to market...

for me it seems that they clearly did less tests than necessary... And this is a golden rule in computer industry. Test hardly before the softwsre / hardware is ou in the market...
For me it's so clearly that with expectations being heigh the standarst would also be heigh... I guess Plextor screwd up big time... for the 2nd time in a row...

Change log for firmware v1.02:

Improvements:
* Writing quality improvement on DVD media.
* Support for 12x write on some DVD+R 8x or DVD-R 8x discs.
* AUTOSTRATEGY function improvement

Bug Fixes:
* Fixed a problem in writing some DVD+RW media.

Ian,

Any idea why they are releasing drives with firmware 1.02 but have chosen not to release the firmware for download?

No idea. I will ask though.

Ian wrote:Change log for firmware v1.02:

Improvements:
* Writing quality improvement on DVD media.
* Support for 12x write on some DVD+R 8x or DVD-R 8x discs.
* AUTOSTRATEGY function improvement

Bug Fixes:
* Fixed a problem in writing some DVD+RW media.

and here's the changelog they DIDN'T want you to see:

* Some DVDRs now work after burning
* Drive now meets minimum standards of advertised specs
* Quality now rivaling BTC with positive results

Bug Fixes:
* Fixed one of the problems in writing some DVD+RW media.

dolphinius_rex wrote:

Ian wrote:Change log for firmware v1.02:

Improvements:
* Writing quality improvement on DVD media.
* Support for 12x write on some DVD+R 8x or DVD-R 8x discs.
* AUTOSTRATEGY function improvement

Bug Fixes:
* Fixed a problem in writing some DVD+RW media.

and here's the changelog they DIDN'T want you to see:

* Some DVDRs now work after burning
* Drive now meets minimum standards of advertised specs
* Quality now rivaling BTC with positive results

Bug Fixes:
* Fixed one of the problems in writing some DVD+RW media.

loooooooool
You bet it!!! _It's bether but not perfect

bch wrote:Any idea why they are releasing drives with firmware 1.02 but have chosen not to release the firmware for download?

In the next day or two. There's a leaked version on the web right now . I have not tried it though. It's mirrored here:

http://s87915552.onlinehome.us/cdrlabs/716A-102.exe

A word of caution about upgrading to firmware 1.02

I have a tla#0000 Best Buy model that I flashed to 1.01 a month ago. I was happy as a clam, burning Memorex (Ritek & CMC Mag) 4X discs at 8X. Last night I flashed it with the 1.02 obtained from the Chinese Plextor site and the burner is toast . It completes all burns at 6X instead of 8X and no unit can read the discs including the Plextor. They certainly won't play on my DVD player. I flashed back to 1.01 and it did not resolve the problem.

So... unless this was an amazing cooincidence, I'd say I screwed my burner up with the new firmware. It may indeed have issues with tla#0000.

I called Plextor and they told me to request an RMA..

mcc004 16x@12x media tests on 716 TLA:0101 with 1.02 fw

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.php?p ... stcount=43

OK, so LG's 4163B is faster and better on that media (@12x) (5m28s @ 16x, 5m57s @ 12x, with really low error rate at 12x).

so where is lg gsa 4163b? this seems like the most interesting drive so far & lg is back on my shopping list; i have to say i have a soft spot on lg

One is in my PC...