Plextor PX-750A 16x DVD±RW/RAM

Model: Plextor PX-750A 16x DVD±RW/RAM
Manufacturer: Plextor
Provided By: Plextor America

Plextor has been a leader in the optical storage industry for as long as I can remember. Considered by many to be the professional's choice, their drives are known the world over for the performance, quality and features they offer. As you can imagine, this is a reputation that Plextor has worked hard to uphold. Over the years, they've continued to lead the way by being one of the first companies to bring both faster writing speeds and new technologies to the market.

One of the latest additions to Plextor's already impressive line of DVD writers is the PX-750A. While technically not Plextor's first "Super-Multi" drive, it is the first of theirs available outside of Japan. Based on the BenQ DQ60, the PX-750A is capable of 16x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD+R DL, 4x DVD-R DL, 5x DVD-RAM writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. Of course, Plextor's new drive isn't just about reading and writing DVD's.The PX-750A also includes features like 40x CD reading and writing speeds, 32x rewriting speeds and an impressive software bundle from Roxio and Sonic.

While Plextor America has not announced when or if the PX-750A will be available in the US and Canada, they were able to provide one for us to review. To give you an idea of what to expect, we'll take a look at the PX-750A's features and then see how it stacks up against the "Super-Multi" drives from companies like NEC and LG. Does Plextor's new drive have what it takes? Keep reading as we find out.

The PX-750A we received from Plextor was the bulk, or OEM, version. While they were able to provide a copy of the software DVD, the drive did not come with anything else.

Physical Features:

The drive Plextor sent us for this review was manufactured in December of 2005 and had firmware version 1.01. It was also manufactured in China and had a TLA# of "0001".For this review we updated the firmware to version 1.02.

Like the PX-740A, the PX-750A is based on a drive design from BenQ. In this case, it's BenQ's "Super-Multi" drive, the DQ60. While the bulk version of the PX-750A lacks the "Plextor" and "PX-750A" logos, you can see that there are still a few showing off its support for DVD+R DL, DVD+ReWritable, DVD-Multi and Ultra Speed CD-RW media.

Below the tray you can see the PX-750A's single LED. Off by default, this LED lights up green whenever the drive is reading or writing.

The rear of the PX-750A is fairly straight forward. By looking at the picture below you can see the drive's IDE interface, power connector and audio output connectors.

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 Europe's website and the manual that came with the drive.

More Features:

By looking at the picture below, you can see that Plextor's new DVD writer is identified as a "PLEXTOR DVDR PX-750A."

The Nero screenshot also shows that the PX-750A has a maximum CD writing speed of 48x and a 2048KB buffer. This buffer is backed up by Sanyo's BURN-Proof buffer underrun protection. Technically this isn't true, as the drive uses a chipset from Panasonic, not Sanyo. Along with support for the Mt. Rainier format, the PX-750A can also write CD-Text and overburn. Unfortunately, we were not able to test the drive's overburning capabilities as it would not recognize our 99 minute CompUSA media.

Using Alex Noe's Weak Sector Utility we were able to determine that the PX-750A is a "two sheep" burner. This means that the PX-750A is capable of backing up titles protected by SafeDisc 2, including version 2.51.

Here is a screenshot 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-750A's maximum reading and writing speeds, recording modes, buffer underrun protection and 2MB buffer.

InfoTool also shows that the PX-750A is an 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. Unfortunately, a patched RPC-1 firmware is not yet available for the PX-750A.

While InfoTool gives us a quick glance at the PX-750A'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 Plextor's new drive can read and write to DVD+R DL, DVD-R DL and DVD-RAM media.

The PX-750A 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.

Plextor has included a DVD full of software with the PX-750A. Along with Roxio's Easy Media Creator 7 suite, this disc contains a number of applications from Sonic including MyDVD 6.1 LE, RecordNow 7.31 and CinePlayer 2.1.

Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 Basic DVD Edition - Easy Media Creator 7 is the main CD/DVD mastering program included with the PX-750A. With this software, users can create their own CD's and DVD'sor make backups of existing discs.

Along with a long list of tasks, the menu above shows a list of components that make up the Easy Media Creator 7 suite. The first component you see is the Disc Copier. This software lets you make copies of your non protected CD's and DVD's quickly and easily. Disc Copier's advanced mode will even display the video, audio and extras on your DVD-Videos, so that you can remove the unwanted parts.

DVD Builder is Roxio's DVD authoring application. With this program you can easily capture, edit and then burn your favorite videos to CD or DVD.DVD Builder will also allow users to add transitions and background music, create animated menus, and organize clips and photos into custom slide shows.

Easy Media Creator 7 also includes what Roxio calls "Creator Classic." While not as robust as disc mastering software like Nero Burning ROM, Creator Classic will have you creating your own custom CD's and DVD's in no time.

Roxio also includes their packet writing software, Drag-to-Disc, with Easy Media Creator 7. Drag-to-Disc lets a person write to CD or DVD media the same way they would a floppy disk or their hard drive. It also supports most CD and DVD media, including write once formats like CD-R, DVD-R and DVD+R.

Video editing duties are handled by VideoWave SE. This easy to use software lets you trim your video clips and spruce them up by adding things like transitions, titles, music, and special effects. When you're done, simply burn your movie to disc.

Last but not least you have PhotoSuite 7. This software gives you the ability to repair, enhance and share your digital photos. It also includes a number of automated and advanced photo editing tools that will let you easily crop and rotate your pictures, remove things like red-eye and wrinkles and add text and special effects.

Sonic MyDVD 6.1 LE - With MyDVD you can create your own VCD's and DVD's quickly and easily. Right from the start, MyDVD gives you a number of options including the ability to create or modify a DVD-Video, DVD+VR/-VR disc or Video CD.

Adding movie clips to your current project is as easy as drag and drop. MyDVD lets you take any MPEG-1/2/4, AVI, WMV, VOB or QuickTime video clip and add it to your project. It also allows you to make your own custom menus and will even let you add your own pictures, icons and sound effects.

MyDVD will also let you transfer video from your camcorder directly to disc, using the Direct-to-DVD/VCD wizard. Simply choose your menu style and MyDVD will capture the video and automatically burn it to CD or DVD.

Sonic RecordNow 7.31 - If the Easy Media Creator suite isn't your thing, the PX-750A also comes with Sonic's CD/DVD mastering program, RecordNow. With this software, users can create various types of CD's and DVD's or make backups of existing discs. RecordNow also has the ability to create "Jukebox CD's" full of MP3, WMA, or WAV files.

RecordNow's task-based interface is fairly straightforward. Simply select the project type and then the job you want to perform. If you can't figure out what project type to use, just drag the files you want to record onto the "bit budget" and RecordNow's intelligent drag and drop feature will select the project for you.

Sonic CinePlayer 2.1 - Plextor's new drive also comes with Sonic's DVD playback software, CinePlayer. Along with DVD movies, CinePlayer can be used to play back your VCD's, SVCD's or whatever video files you might have on your hard drive.

CinePlayer also lets you take screen shots of your favorite scenes and tweak your video settings using the built in picture controls. Sonic's DVD playback software also supports OpenDVD. With this feature, you can open your OpenDVD project in MyDVD directly from CinePlayer for further editing.

While lacking many of Plextor's more advanced technologies, the PX-750A still delivers a good number of features. Like the BenQ drive it's based on, it supports most CD and DVD formats and sports some pretty impressive specs. The drive is capable of 16x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD+R DL and 4x DVD-R DL writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. On top of that, it can read and write DVD-RAM media at 5x. The PX-750A also includes useful features like buffer underrun protection and bitsetting as well as an impressive software bundle from Roxio and Sonic. With all this it's easy to see why the PX-750 gets a solid 8 out of 10 for its features.

Installing the PX-750A in our test computer took only a couple of minutes. After taking Plextor's new DVD writer out of the box, I left the jumper set to master and installed it on the secondary IDE chain by connecting the IDE cable and power connector. When I turned on the computer the BIOS detected it as a drive supporting UDMA 66. After making sure that the DMA was enabled in the Device Manager, I was ready to start installing the software.

Software Installation:

As I mentioned earlier, the PX-750A comes with a DVD full of software from Roxio and Sonic. If you have autorun enabled on your computer, the menu shown below will appear when you insert the disc. From here you can access the manual, register your drive or install the bundled software.

Clicking on the "Software" button will bring up the menu pictured below. Simply click the name of the application you want to install, and its setup program will start up automatically.

If you have installed Roxio's Easy Media Creator before, you're probably already familiar with the installation process. All you need to do is choose what language you want and select your installation options.By default the setup program will install the entire suite onto your computer. If you don't want to install everything, select the custom installation. From here you can choose just the components you want.

Installing the rest of the bundled software is pretty straightforward. In most cases, it's as simple as choosing the location where you want to install the program, clicking next a few times and waiting for the setup program to copy the files over. After rebooting you'll be ready to to do things like edit your videos and burn them to disc.

Documentation:

While the drive we received from Plextor did not come with any printed documentation, there was a copy of the manual on the CD in electronic format. Similar to the ones included with Plextor's other DVD writers, the manual starts out by getting the user familiarized with their new DVD writer. The first section goes over the PX-750A's capabilities, features and system requirements. Plextor has also provided some pretty good diagrams showing all of the different buttons and connectors located on the front and back of the drive. Everything is labeled clearly and the functions of each are easy to understand.

The next section of the manual jumps right into the physical installation of the PX-750A. It starts out by going over how to open up your computer and determine your existing IDE configuration. If you're not sure about how to configure your computer, Plextor has provided a few examples along with the corresponding jumper settings. For more experienced users, there are also a few recommended configurations that will get you up and running quickly. The rest of the installation section walks you through the process of mounting the drive in your computer and hooking up the cables.

The manual finishes up by going over the basic operation of the PX-750A. Along with information on how to use and maintain the drive, there is a short list of frequently asked questions. Last but not least, Plextor has also provided a comprehensive list of specifications as well as a list of recommended media.

Like the other Plextor drives I've reviewed, the PX-750A was very easy to install. I had no problems getting the drive or the software installed and working. For those that might need a little help, the documentation Plextor has provided is quite good and contains a lot of information that should satisfy the needs of both novices and professionals alike. With this in mind, the PX-750A gets a 9 out of a possible 10 for the installation portion of this review.

While CPU, memory, OS and other variables don't often make a huge difference, there are some nonetheless. We have a computer that is used only for testing hardware. We do this so all tests can be compared reliably.

Test System:

For DVD writers the performance tests are broken down into four sections: CD read, CD write, DVD read and DVD write tests. Each benchmark test has been run three times. The score given is an average of the three. DMA has been enabled in device manager for all IDE devices supporting it.

CD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the CD-ROM benchmarks, CD WinBench 99 v3.0 and CD Speed v4.10 are used to test read speeds, seek times and CPU usage. For DAE testing both CD Speed and CD DAE are used. CD Speed is used to give an overall DAE speed rating and CD DAE is used to give the track by track extraction speeds and to check the extracted tracks for errors the drive may have created.

CD Write Tests: To test the write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 650MB and 700MB to our test media. Times are recorded. To test rewrite scores, Nero is used again to time how long it takes to write 400MB of random files and directories. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

DVD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the DVD benchmarks CD Speed v4.10 is used to test read speeds, seek times, and CPU usage.

DVD Write Tests: To test the DVD write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 4GB to our test media. Times are recorded. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

CD Winbench 99 Scores:

The CD Winbench test is as close as we can get to testing every day usage. It fires off eight different applications using scripts. This tries to mimic the activities of a person loading these programs onto their own computer.

Plextor's new DVD±RW drive gave us some mixed performance in our CD Winbench tests.While the PX-750A's overall score was fairly good, it had the slowest transfer rates out of the four drives here. As you can see, it started reading at 12.5x (1880 / 150) and reached a maximum speed of only 37.6x (5650 / 150).

CD Speed v4.10 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used a pressed CD containing one Mode 1 data track. The disc is 74:38 in size and is full of data and directories.

	Plextor PX-750A	ASUS DRW-1608P2	NEC ND-4550A	LG GSA-4167B
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	29.40x 16.96x 38.86x	31.30x 18.12x 41.24x	35.60x 20.54x 47.09x	35.63x 20.45x 47.28x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	135ms 143ms 250ms	104ms 145ms 222ms	137ms 145ms 219ms	114ms 126ms 183ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	0% 1% 2% 4%	1% 1% 3% 6%	17% 1% 3% 6%	1% 1% 3% 36%

The PX-750A didn't perform as well as I had expected when reading pressed CD's. While rated at 40x, the drive reached a maximum read speed of only 38x in our tests, and its seek times were higher than we'd like to see.

CD Speed v4.10 - CD-R Media:

For this test I made a copy of our pressed test CD. I used 12x rated Memorex Gold 74 minute media for the tests.

The PX-750A was a little faster when reading CD-R media.Thanks to this small speed boost, it reached a maximum transfer speed of 40x. Looking at the other scores, you can see that the drive's seek times were again quite high.

Unfortunately, Plextor's new drive had some trouble reading our 99 minute CompUSA media. If the session on the CD was larger than 90 minutes in size, it would not recognize the disc correctly. Using a disc with about 90 minutes worth of data, I was able to reach a maximum read speed of about 38.99x.

CD Speed v4.10 - CD-RW Media:

For this test I made a copy of a pressed test CD. I used some PNY 80 minute CD-RW media for the tests.

Plextor's new drive also reads CD-RW media at 40x. While the PX-750A came close, it wasn't able to reach this number in our tests.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.10 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used Pure Funk. The CD is almost exactly 74 minutes. This helps to squeeze the maximum performance out of the CD.

Exact Audio Copy can tell us a lot about a drive's capabilities. You can see from the screen shot that while the Plextor PX-750A supports accurate stream and has the ability to retrieve C2 error information from the CD, it does not cache audio data.

CD Speed	Plextor PX-750A	ASUS DRW-1608P2	NEC ND-4550A	LG GSA-4167B
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	29.19x 16.95x 38.73x 10 Yes	30.52x 18.04x 38.58x 10 Yes	30.94x 17.99x 40.12x 10 Yes	30.81x 17.50x 40.79x 10 Yes

While not as fast as the other drives, the PX-750A had no problems ripping pressed audio CD's. Looking at the scores above, you can see that it reached a maximum DAE speed of 38.73x.

To get a better look at the quality of the extracted audio we use CD DAE. CD DAE is actually designed to be an audio ripping program. It converts the CD-DA on the CD to .wav files. We use it in our testing because it can also be used as a quick and easy way to test the quality. Where CD Speed tests the DAE as one large session, CD DAE extracts each CD track individually. It actually extracts each track twice and then compares them to check for any errors. Every error a drive creates could be a hiss or pop you would hear later in the audio tracks.

While Plextor's new DVD writer started out a little faster when extracting our test CD with CD DAE, its average and maximum speeds were slower than what we saw with CD Speed.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.10 - CD-R Media:

For this test I used a copy of the Pure Funk CD. It's burned onto the same Memorex Gold 74 minute media I used in the CD Speed tests.

The PX-750A was slightly faster when ripping audio CD-R discs. While still not as fast as the other drives, it reached a maximum DAE speed of 39x in our tests. So how did it do in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

Plextor's new DVD writer completed CD Speed's advanced DAE tests with an average score of 28.06x. The drive had no problems passing all of the on-the-fly tests and did not create any errors. If you look at the advanced features, you can see that the PX-750A was able to read the CD-Text and subchannel data but failed to read the lead in and lead out sections of the CD.

To see how well Plextor's new drive can read scratched and dirty discs, I used CD Speed's ScanDisc utility to see how many sectors were damaged or unreadable. This is a very rough, but good way to test the drive's error correcting abilities.

CD Speed - ScanDisc

The PX-750A did surprisingly well here. By looking at the screenshot, you can see that the drive considered only 53.04% of the CD to be "damaged". On top of that, none of the sectors on the disc were unreadable.

You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.

The PX-750A did very well in this test. The scratches on the disc had little effect on the drive's speed and the number of errors remained fairly low.

CD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.0.16 andDLA 4.95:

For this test I randomly generated 650MB and 700MB of files and directories to test the time it takes the drive to write and close a CD. All of the files are between 1MB and 25MB in size and no more than 10 directories deep. All of the times below include not only the actual writing time, but the lead in and out times too. This gives a more realistic idea of how long it takes to write a CD.

 

The PX-750A has a maximum CD writing speed of 40x. To reach this speed, it uses CAV, or Constant Angular Velocity. With Fuji's 48x media, the drive started writing at about 17.82x and reached a maximum speed of 40.18x at the end of the session. This gave Plextor's new DVD±RW an average writing speed of about 30.20x.

To test the PX-750A's writing times, I wrote our test data to some Taiyo Yuden manufactured Fujimedia rated at 48x. The results are below.

Plextor's new DVD writer did fairly well in our tests. While no match for the drives from NEC and LG, the PX-760A was able to write an entire 650MB CD in a little more than 3 minutes.

To test the drive's writing quality I used Lite-On IT's KProbe2. Written by Karr Wang, this utility can be used to test the number of C1 and C2 errors on a disc. For these tests I used a Lite-On LTR-52246S (firmware 6S0F) and read the discs at 32x.

Fuji 48x (Taiyo Yuden)

Memorex 52x (CMC)

Verbatim 52x

The PX-750A's writing quality is very good. By looking at the KProbe screenshots, you can see that the discs burned by the drive had a low number of C1 errors and there were no C2 errors at all.

For the rewriting tests I created 400MB of files on the hard drive and wrote them in DAO mode using Nero. To test the packet writing speeds I copied and pasted the same files off the hard drive onto a CD-RW disc using DLA from Sonic. Verbatim's 24x Ultra Speed CD-RW media was used for these tests.

The PX-750A also uses CAV when rewriting at 24x. By looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the drive starts rewriting at about 10.52x and doesn't reach its maximum speed until the end of the session.

Plextor's new DVD writer didn't do as well as some of the other drives in our rewriting tests. Due in part to its CAV writing method, the PX-750A took 3:36 to write 400MB with Nero and 3:35 to do the same with DLA.

The PX-750A's CAV writing method also put it at a disadvantage when erasing. The drive not only had the highest quick erase time, it took a whopping 5:07 to do a full erase.

Nero CD Speed v4.10 - DVD-ROM:

A little editorial note here. Like a CD-ROM, you will get different benchmark results depending on what kind of discs you are using. You are probably going to get varying results from a full data disc to a single layer movie disc. You're also going to get different results for single and dual layer discs.

The CD Speed website recommends using a single layer DVD-ROM disc with a capacity of at least 4GB. If you use a dual layer disc you probably won't get the best results because most DVD-ROM drives slow down to read them. Some even slow down to read single layer DVD-Video discs. To make a long story short, I am using a 4.37GB single layer, single sided disc for this test.

The PX-750A wasn't as fast as some of the others when reading single layer DVD-ROM's. While it came close, Plextor's new drive again had a hard time reaching its rated speed in our tests.

Nero CD Speed v4.10 - DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM:

First, we'll look at the drive's DVD-R and DVD-RW reading performance. For this I made copies of our DVD-ROM test disc using some general use 4x DVD-R and 2x DVD-RW media from Verbatim and then ran our usual DVD read tests with CD Speed. For the DVD-RAM tests, media from Maxell was used. The results are below.

Verbatim DVD-R DL

The PX-750A had no problems reading DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-R DL media. In our tests, it was able to read DVD-R discs at speeds near 10x, but slowed to about 8x when reading DVD-RW and DVD-R DL media.

Maxell 5x DVD-RAM

Plextor's new drive has a maximum transfer speed of 5x when reading DVD-RAM discs. By looking at the screenshot, you can see that it reads at this speed from start to finish.

Nero CD Speed v4.10 - DVD+R and DVD+RW:

Next we'll look at the drive's DVD+R and DVD+RW reading performance. For this I made a copy of our DVD-ROM test disc using some 4x DVD+R and 2.4x DVD+RW media from Verbatim. I then ran our usual DVD read tests with CD Speed. The results are below.

The PX-750A's performance with DVD+R and DVD+RW media was very similar to what we saw with DVD-R and DVD-RW media.The drive read DVD+R discs at 10x and DVD+RW media at 8x.

Verbatim DVD+R DL

Reading Verbatim's double layer DVD+R media wasn't a problem for the PX-750A either. While not as fast as the drive from LG, it reached a respectable 7.99x in CD Speed's transfer rate tests.

Nero CD Speed v4.10 - DVD-Video:

For these tests I am using the US version of Transformers: The Movie on DVD. The disc is over 4GB and single sided.

The PX-750A didn't slow down very much when reading single layer DVD videos. It started out at about 6.48x and reached a maximum read speed of 15.75x. Plextor's new drive was also fairly quick when reading dual layer discs. By looking at the screenshot below, you can see that the drive's transfer speeds peaked at about 7.96x.

To see how well the PX-750A worked as a DVD player, I watched a few scenes from Transformers: The Movie and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace using WinDVD 4 and PowerDVD 5. The drive had no problems playing back these movies with either program and was fairly quiet.

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.0.16 andDLA 4.95:

To test the DVD writing performance of Plextor's new drive I used Verbatim 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R, 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW media. To get the writing times, a 4.38GB image was burned to our test discs using Nero.

When writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 16x, the PX-750A uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Plextor's new drive starts writing at about 6.7x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The PX-750A also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. While the drive uses CLV when writing to DVD-RW media, it uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum DVD+RW writing speed.

Plextor's new drive performed pretty well in our DVD writing tests. While not as fast as the drive from LG, the PX-750A turned in some respectable times with both DVD±R and DVD±RW media.

While Plextor has a list of recommended media on their website, I wanted to see for myself how well the PX-750A worked with some of the DVD+R and DVD-R media currently available. The media types, along with the average time it took the drive to write our 4.38GB image, are listed below.

The PX-750A's media requirements were very high, even with the new 1.02 firmware. The drive wrote to very little of our test media at its rated speed and in a few cases, its OPC technology prevented it from reaching the maximum available writing speed.

So what about writing quality? Testing a drive's DVD writing quality isn't easy. Until now, there were very few options, unless you wanted to shell out thousands of dollars for a certified test machine. Thanks to KProbe, we can test a disc's PI (Parity Inner) and PIF (Parity Inner Fail) rates.For these tests I used a Lite-On SOHW-1673S (firmware JS07) and read the discs at 4x with the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8 and 1 respectively. For comparison, I also tested the discs on a BenQ DW1640. When combined with Nero CD Speed, the DW1640 is able to report PI Errors, PI Failures, Parity Outer Failures and even jitter levels. For this test, the discs are read at 8x with both the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8.

So what are "good" results supposed to look like? With KProbe, the PI errors should not exceed 280 and the number of PIF errors should stay below 4. When testing with CD Speed, the number of PI errors should stay below 280 as well. However, because it scans with an ECC sum of 8, a higher number of PIF errors is acceptable, as long as they do not exceed 32. Since POF errors are uncorrectable, we really don't want to see any of them at all.

I also put these discs through a "stress test" by reading them back at 16x with the DW1640. By reading these discs back at this speed, we can see if there are any readability issues caused by the number of errors or high levels of jitter.

The PX-750A's writing quality was pretty good with most of the DVD+R media we tested. In most cases, the PI/PIF rates stayed well within acceptable limits. The only exception being Optodisc's 16x DVD+R media. When scanned with the BenQ DW1640, the PI rates were fairly high near the end.

Lastly, here are some results from our DVD-R test media. Looking at the graphs above, you can see that the discs from Maxell, Taiyo Yuden and Optodisc yielded some fairly good results. Unfortunately, the PI/PIF rates were considerably higher with the media from Daxon and Memorex. When tested with CD Speed, there were also a number of POF errors on these discs as well as the ones from Verbatim.

Something to point out is that while the PX-750A had no problems erasing DVD+RW discs at 8x, it erasedDVD-RW media at only 4x.

To test the PX-750A's packet writing performance I used DLA 4.95. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 5x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

The PX-750A performed pretty well in our packet writing tests. While not the fastest drive here, it turned in some fairly good writing times with DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM media.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.0.16:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the PX-750A, I used Verbatim 8x DVD+R DL, Verbatim 2.4x DVD+R DL, RiDATA 2.4x DVD+R DL, Memorex 2.4x DVD+R DL and Verbatim 4x DVD-R DL media. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

Finding DVD+R DL media that would work at 8x was not an easy task. The only media we found that would work at this speed were Verbatim's new 8x DVD+R DL discs. With the other DVD+R DL media, the writing speed was limited to 4x. Even then, Memorex's media failed to complete a successful burn at this speed. For our tests, we had to slow the writing speed down to 2.4x.

The PX-750A wasn't as fast as I had expected when writing to DVD+R DL media at 8x. With Nero, it took the drive 20:50 to write 8001MB of data. If you do the math, this is a good two minutes slower than the drives from the competition. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality wasn't as good as I had expected with Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL media. When scanned with the BenQ DW1640, the PIF rate was fairly high at the layer change. Unfortunately, the writing quality wasn't much better with the 2.4x DVD+R DL media from Verbatim and RiDATA. While the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits, they were still higher than we'd like to see. The worst results were with Memorex's 2.4x DVD+R DL media. The PI/PIF rates were not only considerably higher, the large spike at the layer change caused some readability problems.

The PX-750A also features 4x DVD-R DL writing speeds. To test the drive's writing times, DVD-R DL media from Verbatim was used.

With its 4x writing speed, the PX-750A wasn't nearly as fast as the drives from ASUS and NEC. In our tests, it took Plextor's new drive 28:33 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The PX-750A's writing quality was pretty good with Verbatim's 4x DVD-R DL media. The PI/PIF rates stayed well within acceptable limits when tested with both KProbe and CD Speed and, aside from a few small dips, there were no readability problems.

Performance Revisited:

Overall, the performance of Plextor new "Super-Multi" was pretty mixed. When writing DVD's, the PX-750A turned in good times with DVD±R and DVD±RW media, but wasn't as fast as some of the other drives when writing to DVD±R DL discs. Writing quality was also an issue as there were a number of cases where the PI/PIF rates were quite high. Nevertheless, the PX-750A was fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it was able to read single layer DVD's at speeds near 16x and DVD±R media at a respectable 10x.

Unfortunately, the PX-750A's performance wasn't as impressive when reading CD's. The drive had a hard time reaching its rated speeds and its seek times were higher than we would have liked to see. As a writer, the PX-750A performed as expected. While not the fastest drive we've tested, its writing quality was very good. With all things considered, the Plextor PX-750A gets a 6 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.

As a leader in the industry, we've come to expect a lot from Plextor. With each new drive, they raise the bar, offering new features and ever faster reading and writing speeds. As you can imagine, I went into this review expecting a lot from Plextor's new "Super-Multi" drive. While the PX-750A's DVD-RAM support was a welcome addition, its questionable writing quality and high media requirements kept it from getting top marks in our review.

Like the BenQ drive it's based on, the PX-750A can write to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 16x. At this speed, it took the drive a little more than 6 minutes to write an entire 4.7GB DVD. Plextor's new DVD writer also did pretty well in our rewriting tests, turning in some respectable times with DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM media. Writing to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media wasn't a problem for the PX-750A either. While not nearly as fast as some of the other drives we've tested, it was able to write 8GB of data in less than 21 minutes.

With a drive like the PX-750A, writing quality and media compatibility are just as important as speed. Unfortunately, finding DVD±R media that would work at 16x was not an easy task, even with the latest firmware. Also keep in mind that if you want to write to DVD+R DL media at 8x, you will need to buy media rated at this speed. Writing quality was also an issue with the PX-750A as we saw high PI/PIF rates and even some PO Failures with a number of discs. Hopefully, Plextor can address this in a future firmware update.

The PX-750A also performed fairly well in our DVD read tests. While its seek times were a little higher than I would have liked, the drive was able to read single layer data and video DVD-ROM's at speeds near 16x. Reading recordable media wasn't a problem for the PX-750A either. In our tests, it read DVD±R discs at 10x and both DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media at 8x.

When it came to reading CD's, the PX-750A did not perform as well as expected. As you saw in our tests, the drive had a hard time reaching its rated speeds when reading both data and audio CD's. The PX-750A's CD writing performance was also a mixed bag. While it held its own fairly well when writing to CD-R media, its CAV writing method put it at a serious disadvantage in our rewriting tests.

Plextor's new "Super-Multi" drive also has its share of features. To prevent buffer underruns, the PX-750Ahas a 2048KB buffer that is backed up by some sort of buffer underrun technology. The drive also includes support for the Mt. Rainier format and can set the book type of DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD+R DL media. Keep in mind though, that like the PX-740A, the PX-750A lacks many of Plextor's more advanced technologies like Q-Check, GigaRec and Autostrategy. Last but not least, Plextor tops all of this off with a great software bundle containing Roxio's Easy Media Creator suite.

At this time, Plextor has not announced when the PX-750A will ship in the US and Canada. In fact, at this point I question whether or not they will. From what we've seen here, they might be better off waiting and introducing a "Super-Multi" drive based on the BenQ DW1670 or, better yet, developing their own.

Highs:

• Writes to DVD±R media at 16x
• Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
• Writes to DVD-RW at 6x
• Writes to DVD+R DL media at 8x
• Writes to DVD-R DL media at 4x
• Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 16x
• Reads DVD±R media at 10x
• Reads DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media at 8x
• Features 40x CD-R and 32x CD-RW writing speeds
• Good CD writing quality
• Includes buffer underrun prevention technology
• Supports bitsetting for DVD+R/RW and DVD+R DL media
• Supports the Mt. Rainier format
• Good documentation

Lows:

• Questionable writing quality with some DVD-R and DVD+R DL media
• Cannot write to 8x DVD±R media at 16x
• Had a hard time reaching its rated read speeds
• Problems recognizing discs larger than 90 minutes
• Cannot do write quality testing
• Has a 2048KB buffer