What's in the box?:
- Plextor PX-740A 16x DVD±RW Drive
- Quick Installation Guide
- Plextor DVD Writing Software - Revision 13.00
- IDE Cable
- Bag of screws and emergency eject tool
Physical Features:
The drive Plextor sent us for this review was manufactured in May of 2005 and had firmware version 1.00. It was also manufactured in China and had a TLA# of "0000".For this review we updated the firmware to version 1.01.
While the PX-740A shares the same basic color scheme as Plextor's previous DVD writers, it looks quite different. This is primarily due to the fact that it's based on the BenQ DW1640 and not one of Plextor's own designs. As you can see, the PX-740A still has plenty of logos. Along with the large "Plextor" logo, you can see a few showing off its support for DVD+R DL, DVD+ReWritable, DVD-R/RW and Ultra Speed CD-RW media.
Below the tray you can see the PX-740A's single LED. Off by default, this LED lights up green whenever the drive is reading or writing.
The rear of the PX-740A looks very similar to some of the other BenQ based DVD writers we've reviewed. By looking at the picture below you can see the drive's IDE interface, power connector and analog audio output connector.
Starting from the left of the IDE connection you'll see the jumper switch for master, slave and cable select. By default it comes set as master. Next to the jumper block is the analog audio connector. The connector on the far left is the digital audio output.
Technical Specs:
Most of the specs below have been taken from Plextor's website and the manual that came with the drive.
| Plextor PX-740A 16x DVD±RW | |
| CD Write Speeds | 48x, 40x (CAV) 32x, 24x (P-CAV) 16x, 12x, (CLV) |
| CD Rewrite Speeds | 32x, 24x (P-CAV) 16x, 10x, 4x (CLV) |
| DVD+R Write Speeds | 16x (CAV) 12x, 8x (P-CAV) 4x, 2.4x (CLV) |
| DVD+RW Write Speeds | 8x (Z-CLV) 4x, 2.4x (CLV) |
| DVD-R Write Speeds | 16x (CAV) 12x, 8x (P-CAV) 4x, 2.4x (CLV) |
| DVD-RW Write Speeds | 6x, 4x, 2.4x (CLV) |
| DVD+R DL Write Speeds | 8x (P-CAV) 4x, 2.4x (CLV) |
| DVD-R DL Write Speeds | 4x (Z-CLV) 2.4x (CLV) |
| CD Read Speeds | 48x Max (CD-ROM/CD-R) 40x Max (CD-RW) |
| DAE Speeds | 48x Max |
| DVD Read Speeds | 16x Max (DVD-ROM Single Layer) 12x Max (DVD-ROM Dual Layer) 16x Max (DVD±R) 12x Max (DVD±RW) 12x Max (DVD±R DL) |
| Buffer Size | 2 MB |
| Access Times |
150 ms (CD) 150 ms (DVD) |
| CD Formats | CD-DA CD-ROM Mode-1 CD-ROM Mode-2 CD-ROM XA CD-Extra Video CD Photo CD Multi-session CD-I CD+G CD-Text CD-R CD-RW |
| DVD Formats | DVD-ROM DVD-Video DVD+R/RW DVD-R/RW DVD+R DL DVD-R DL DVD+VR |
| CD Recording Modes | Track At Once Disc At Once Session At Once Variable and Fixed Packet Writing |
| DVD+R Recording Modes | Disc At Once Multi-session |
| DVD+RW Recording Modes | Sequential Write |
| DVD+R DL Recording Modes | Disc At Once Multi-session |
| DVD-R Recording Modes | Disc At Once Multi-border Recording |
| DVD-RW Recording Modes | Disc At Once Multi-border Recording Restricted Overwriting |
| DVD-R DL Recording Modes | Disc At Once Multi-session |
More Features:
By looking at the picture below, you can see that Plextor's new DVD writer is identified as a "PLEXTOR DVDR PX-740A."
The Nero screenshot also shows that the PX-740A has a maximum CD writing speed of 48x and a 2048KB buffer. This buffer is also backed up by Sanyo's BURN-Proof buffer underrun protection. Technically, this isn't true as the drive uses a chipset from Philips, not Sanyo. According to Nero, the drive can also write CD-Text and overburn. When testing the drive's capacity, it had no problems overburning up to 99 minutes with our CompUSA media.
Like the BenQ DW1640, the PX-740A can do EFM encoding correctly. Using CloneCD version 4.2.0.2 with AWS disabled, Iwas able to reproduce older SafeDisc 2 protected titles like Max Payne along with some of the newer ones protected by SafeDisc 2.51 like Serious Sam: The Second Encounter.
Here is a screen shot from Nero's InfoTool. This program queries the drive to see what its reading and writing capabilities are. InfoTool had no problems detecting the PX-740A's maximum reading and writing speeds, recording modes, buffer underrun protection and 2MB buffer.
InfoTool also shows that the PX-740A is a RPC-2 DVD drive. This means that the drive's region is stored in the firmware. The drive's region can be changed five times and after that it cannot be changed anymore. A patched RPC-1 firmware can be downloaded here. Just keep in mind that it is not supported by Plextor nor by CDRLabs. Use it at your own risk.
While InfoTool gives us a quick glance at the PX-740A's features, DVDINFOpro provides a little more information on some of the drive's reading and writing capabilities. By looking at the screenshot above you can see that while Plextor's new drive can read and write to both DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media, it does not support the Mt. Rainier format.
The PX-740A also supports a feature called "bitsetting." While the drive automatically sets the book type of DVD+R DL media to "DVD-ROM", you can manually do the same with single layer DVD+R and DVD+RW media using CD Speed. This feature comes in handy if you have an older DVD player that has problems playing recordable media.
