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Hi,

Does anyone know when to expect burners supporting DVD-R DL?

Thanks,
Chris

Plextor PX-716A - is here now.. just needs firmware update
Pioneer 109/A09 - should be shipping later this month
NEC ND-3520A - rumored to support DVD-R DL with firmware update

The bigger question should be "Where's the media?"

Waiting to reiceve PX-716 from dabs.com_UK
good reviews on PX-708_PX-712.Anybody good reviews on PX-716_replys
thanks_peter55

peter55 wrote:Waiting to reiceve PX-716 from dabs.com_UK
good reviews on PX-708_PX-712.Anybody good reviews on PX-716_replys
thanks_peter55

Hrm... I'm thinking it'll be a while, and a couple more firmware versions more, before you'll see a *GOOD* review of the PX-716a

Ian wrote:The bigger question should be "Where's the media?"

and the biggest question is, "will it be affordable?"

MB

Dolphinius_rex, you may be right but I’ve been following the plextor forum at cdfreaks, as most of you have, and although the drive has problems burning SL media at 16x, the DL seems to be working real well.
In fact, for what I’ve been reading and seeing I’m tempted to say that it's one of the best DL burners on the market.
Maybe with final version of firmware 1.04 they can solve some of the problems and fine tune Autostrategy. This new technology seems real interesting. Once working as it should it's a real advantage and maybe worth those extra $ or € (in my case).
And of course, you have 109 that if it keeps pioneer tradition it will also be a very nice drive.
I'm strating to be very confuse and ancious to chose my next burner...

Well if PLextor sold it as a 12x burner and didn't include the 16x writeing it wouldn't be such a fuzz as it's now.
The problem is that PLextor cost allmost twice as much as other burners. But can only outperform that other burner on dual layer media. (Specially if it's Ritek but then again that's more ritek's fault as the burner manufacturers.)
I agree that the 716 has some potential but still first fix the 16x issues or take there price down to the same level as most of the competition.
Then they might be able to retrieve some marketplace which there slowly starting to loose.

Noua wrote:Dolphinius_rex, you may be right but I’ve been following the plextor forum at cdfreaks, as most of you have, and although the drive has problems burning SL media at 16x, the DL seems to be working real well.
In fact, for what I’ve been reading and seeing I’m tempted to say that it's one of the best DL burners on the market.
Maybe with final version of firmware 1.04 they can solve some of the problems and fine tune Autostrategy. This new technology seems real interesting. Once working as it should it's a real advantage and maybe worth those extra $ or € (in my case).
And of course, you have 109 that if it keeps pioneer tradition it will also be a very nice drive.
I'm strating to be very confuse and ancious to chose my next burner...

Hrm... with the drive's autostrategy now, doesn't that make personal scans of DVDR media even more useless then before, since results will vary that much MORE??

It *IS* good to see it has some redeeming feature... but being a good dual layer burner means next to nothing, when single layer media is still used more then 1000:1 compared to dual layer (that's a conservative estimate, it's probably closer to 100,000:1)

No it doens't make it more unusefull.
If you want to burn stuff at default then don't use it which is possible.
Burning with autostrategy off shows what the drive performance on that specific media was after Plextor added support for it.
Tweaking it with autostrategy next only gives you better quality.

The only problem I have with autorstrategy that some of the current first strategies could have done much better which would probally mean 1 or 2 disc's less needed.

Also what Ian and some sites are doing waiteing for this or that firmware is not completely fair. I think the product should work for the most time allready at the time you pull open the box unless the box reports that future upgrades are really needed for specific stuff. With the TLA0101 drive I had something from okay because plextor europe did say that there were problems you had a right to waite and see if things changed. However with the current drive I don't think waiteing any longer is justified.
If they come with a mayor fix then report it. If Plextor screwed up then so be it.
There still is a mayority of people out there who don't flash the drive and will just use it with what it comes out of the box. Not testing it might give these people bad idea's based on there past experience with older drives.

RJW wrote:Also what Ian and some sites are doing waiteing for this or that firmware is not completely fair. I think the product should work for the most time allready at the time you pull open the box unless the box reports that future upgrades are really needed for specific stuff.

I try to be fair and give them time to fix problems. The reason I'm waiting for 1.04 is for the 8x +RW support. It's one of the drive's big features. As it is, I'm in no rush to get a review out.

As far as AutoStrategy goes.. it's pretty worthless IMO if you use quality media that is supported by the drive. I've had a hard time finding media to test AutoStrategy with. Plextor has that list of media that is supported by AutoStrategy (http://www.plextor.com/english/support/media_716.htm), but a lot of it doesn't work, at least with the 1.03 firmware. Maybe their list isn't up to date?

After reading this thread, I'm so glad I chose a Nec 3500A. Now all I need is error reporting.