by Vasily Melnik
04/01/2005 | 11:30 AM
It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that the Plextor PX-716A was the most anticipated optical drive of the end of the last and the beginning of the current year. I can hardly remember another drive that would have been enwrapped into so many rumors and suppositions even before its official announcement, not mentioning the release into market.
Trivial though it sounds, everything began with the previous, PX-712A model from Plextor. This device was the first to combine a last-generation DVD drive with the functionality of the famous Premium series. Of course, there had been devices you could have evaluated the quality of the written discs with, but the Premium functionality wasn’t limited to this function only (the Q-Check feature is in fact a subset of what Premium can do). And then, though trivial again, Plextor is always Plextor. You want me to clarify? Here you are: Clover Systems uses a drive from Plextor in its CDX product intended to measure the quality of recorded CD media. This manufacturer says that “the CDX is made from a modified Plextor CD-ROM drive. We add circuitry to the drive to capture error rates and the HF signal”. Of course, we shouldn’t compare a calibrated and enhanced device with what you see on the shelves in shops, but this fact is anyway an illustration of what you should expect from Plextor.
If you were not following how the PX-716A model made it into market, here’s a short version of the story. Users’ opinions were divided as to what would be the next drive after the Plextor PX-712A. Some people said the next model would be an OEM contract with one of the leading manufacturers since Plextor just couldn’t keep on updating its product series at the rate this market demanded. At the moment of the release of the PX-712A many developers had already unveiled their dual-layer recorders and announced products capable of writing DVD-ROMs at 16x speed. The customers were quite naturally expecting to see both new features in the new Plextor, and the developer found itself in dire lack of time. The other group of potential customers argued that Plextor wouldn’t mar its reputation by releasing a clone of maybe a good device, but of a device which was not developed by Plextor itself. Today we know who was right.
Although entirely Plextor’s creation, the PX-716A didn’t take off easily. At the moment of its official announcement the leaders of the optical disc drive market had already gone through three generations of dual-layer DVD-recorders and two generations of products capable of writing DVDs at 16x. That said, the users expected to see something extraordinary in the Plextor PX-716A, not just another 16x dual-layer DVD-recorder, especially considering the rather long development cycle. It just had to offer something worthy of the long wait.
Running a little ahead, I must admit that the Plextor PX-716A had already gone through two revisions and three firmware versions by the time of its real availability on the market. The first version of the drive (TLA#0000 with firmware 1.0) couldn’t withstand any criticism as concerns the burn quality. It was evidently far from what had been expected, and even the enhanced functionality (you’ll learn more about it shortly) couldn’t make up for that deficiency. I should acknowledge that the manufacturer immediately took to improving upon the device, releasing revision TLA#0101 and then TLA#0202. It is the latter revision that can bear the Plextor brand without shame. If this improvement had been made before the start of the sales, it would have been all right, but the problem is that version 0000 and version 0101 were actually selling, mostly in the U.S. and Asian markets. What’s the most disgusting thing, it was the true fans of Plextor who didn’t stop even before the high initial price of the new product that were affected then…
So, we’re going to talk about revision TLA#0202 today (revision TLA#0203 is currently available, but you shouldn’t hunt after it since the last two digits denote the firmware version which can be easily updated after the purchase). After this somewhat long introduction we can proceed to examining the device, particularly to learning about one surprise Plextor parceled with the PX-716A.
This model comes to retail for almost $200, but it is rumored that OEM shipments of the drive have also been spotted. Their origin is a mystery, though.
The package looks surprisingly small. What could be stuffed here, besides the drive proper? Not much, really. Here we’ve got a CD with a software bundle, some screws, a spare jumper and a bracket for emergency extraction of the disc. An interface or an audio cable is not enclosed.
But you do find something more precious – a replaceable black face panel. At last it dawned upon people at Plextor that not all users have white system cases and that some of these users do care about the exterior of their PC, besides its speed and functionality. What’s sad is the lack of blank discs in the package. The number of blanks enclosed with Plextor drives has been constantly diminishing and now it’s zero.
To tell you the truth, there exists another shipment version of this device, in a roomier white-colored box. This box includes the desired IDE cable and one blank DVD+R 8x disc from Plextor (but actually manufactured by Taiyo Yuden). You don’t receive a “free” copy of Nero Burning ROM in either shipment version; you have to do with Plextor DVD Writing Software.
The design of the front panel hasn’t changed since the PX-712A. They have only added the logo that indicates the drive’s ability to burn dual-layer media. A tray eject button, a LED indicator, an emergency-extraction hole are the only things the user will find on the front panel. Ah, and of course here’s the corporate black strip along the bottom of the tray. By the way, this strip isn’t that conspicuous on the black face panel, but looks very unusual nonetheless. At least, the exclusive Plextor style remains. The functionality of the three-color LED indicator is still as wide as to require some explanation:
That’s informative enough. You only have to find some practical use from the indicator for yourself…
The device’s rear panel carries the same interface and power connectors as the Plextor PX-716A model has. The innards of the device are cooled passively through the five vent holes in the rear of the case. This solution was natural in the times of the PX-712/708, but some apprehensions arise as to its efficiency in the PX-716A. The case of the new drive has a shortened length, so the component density is higher there. It’s another question how the manufacturer managed to squeeze such a wide functionality into the reduced volume of the case, but as for ventilation, the drive’s temperature remained normal throughout my tests, so you shouldn’t worry about its health (but don’t forget that optical drives, if you have more than one, should not be placed too close to each other in the system case).
Using the jumpers (one is already in the drive, and another is included in the drive’s package) you can not only select the drive’s status on the IDE channel (Master or Slave), but also:
The top panel of the drive has changed. The spindle regulator that prevented the disc from beating in the PX-712A has disappeared in the PX-716A model. The tray is still colored black (you should already know that the black color of the tray is said to minimize first encoder errors as well as jitter). Among nice trifles, I can note the foam-rubber padding of the tray to reduce noise and to prevent dust from getting into the drive. Now let’s have a look inside to see what components this device is based on:
Plextor PX-716A
Plextor PX-712A
The innards of the new drive differ much from the previous model, but Plextor keeps loyal to its traditions and still uses chipsets from Sanyo. Here we deal with the next generation of Sanyo’s electronics, the LSI LC897492FL chipset. The previous model used the Sanyo LC897491FL chipset. So we can expect the functionality of the new model to be wider. We’ll learn shortly if this is really so. Right now let’s read through the specification of the Plextor PX-716A:
The asterisk (*) marks what I would regard as surprises. The PX-716A didn’t originally support 6-8x rewrite speeds or burning dual-layer DVD-R discs (by the way, this is the first DVD-recorder we’ve met in our labs that can work with media of that type). All these features appeared only in firmware revision 1.04. It’s clearly an attempt of the manufacturer to make excuses to the users (other developers would most probably think such innovations sufficient for a new model). Here, the user has everything free of charge by updating the firmware.
That’s enough about the specification. Below is the information that Nero InfoTool and DVDInfo tell about the drive:
Now we can talk about the functionality of the Plextor PX-716A at length. It partially overlaps with the analogous capabilities of the PX-712A, so users who know the previous model well may pay attention only to the items added in the new drive.
Traditionally for drives of the Plextor brand, the user is offered a wide scope of various settings, embracing all the basic parameters of the device: the speed of reading optical media (you can forget about third-party programs for “slowing down” the drive), the disc spin-down time, and the independent volume control over each channel when reproducing audio.
The more subtle settings allow you to enable or disable PoweRec technology (you’ll learn shortly why you may want to do that), to disable the buffer underrun protection (the practical value of this item is unclear for me) and others.
The items pertaining to AutoStrategy technology are the most interesting, though. This feature is new to the PX-716A, since the previous version of the Sanyo chipset didn’t support it. So, it makes sense to dwell upon it for a while. Since AutoStrategy is part of Intelligent Recording, I will discuss it as such.
This technology is intended to improve the quality of written optical discs. It consists of two sub-technologies: AutoStrategy and Intelligent Tilt.
The former is the result of half a decade of Taiyo Yuden’s researching ways to improve the quality of writing to optical discs. It was first implemented in silicon in the Sanyo LSI LC897492FL chipset. Its gist is in the following: encountering a blank disc for which there’s no burn strategy stored in the drive’s firmware, the drive enables the “self-training” mode, trying to find the optimal parameters of burning. After the burn session the results are written into a special area in the drive’s flash memory (which can store up to 32 such entries). The user can check out manually at which speeds the unidentified disc will be written with the best quality.
The burn quality improves with each burn session with blanks of this particular type. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find blanks which the PX-716A would be unfamiliar with, so I couldn’t check this technology out in practice. But according to other testers, the quality of the written disc would improve greatly after three burn sessions with discs of that type. So, the technology does work and allows the user to extend the catalog of discs for which the drive has optimal burn strategies, without waiting for an official firmware update.
The other part of Intelligent Recording technology – Intelligent Tilt – is a method of improving the quality of the written discs by ensuring that the laser beam falls on the surface of the disc at a constant angle. We have already met such technologies in products from Pioneer and Samsung. They are implemented in different ways, though. In the first case, they use a plate with a layer of liquid crystals which is placed on the path of the laser beam. In the second case, a tracking mechanism is adjusting the position of the PHU lens. Plextor doesn’t reveal how exactly Intelligent Tilt works, only mentioning a special design of the head with three degrees of freedom which allows adapting the burn process depending on the crookedness of the surface of the disc. I would suppose that this mechanism is closer to Samsung’s solution, though. The reduction of jitter, as promised by the manufacturer, is shown in the diagram above.
This technology should be well-known to the user community since the Premium series of optical drives. Its key point is in giving the user the opportunity of manually adjusting the power of the laser depending on the burn speed, the active layer employed in the medium and the personal preferences as well as on the goals the disc is created for. This adjustment can bring the biggest effect is used for creating audio CDs. For example, deliberately increasing the laser power you increase the jitter rate (I mean “optical” rather than the “acoustical” jitter), but also increase the contrast of the disc which would ensure its better readability in some player models.
This burn mode may be not very necessary for an ordinary user, but it may be indispensable in those rare cases when you do need it. None of other manufacturers offers such fine-tune adjustments in their products.
This is yet another relic of the Premium series. This burn mode allows to squeeze more data onto a CD-R by reducing the length of pits and lands relative to their etalon values. The user is offered several degrees of the “compression” the resulting capacity of the written disc depends upon.
The manufacturer honestly warns you that this burn mode creates a disc that may be unreadable in other optical drives. This risk is the higher if you select a higher compression degree. Moreover, the buffer underrun protection doesn’t work together with GigaRec, so the risk of damaging the blank is even higher. Despite the danger, this technology is quite popular among the users. Didn’t you have situations when you needed to put just a few dozens of megabytes more on the CD?
As the name of this option suggests, its purpose is to reduce the noise produced by the drive. Noise is a real scourge of modern ultra-high-speed devices, so the opportunity of quieting the drive a little is really good. Of course, there exist third-party utilities that reduce the read speed of the optical drive, but here the user has more setup flexibility. Besides the manual limitation of the read speed, you can limit the burn speed as well as the speed of the disc tray. The disc spin-up time can also be controlled.
The SecureRecording function is responsible for protecting your confidential information on optical discs. When a disc is being written, SecuRec asks you for a password. You’ll have to enter this password to read the written disc afterwards. You’ll require a special utility, available for download on the Plextor website, to read such a disc on another computer system.
This subsection is the most important one for users who are interested in evaluating the quality of the written discs – the latest models from Plextor offer numerous opportunities to do that. I won’t dwell long on the items of this subsection as you can refer to the review of the previous model, Plextor PX-712A, for details. I will only limit myself with those things which are new in the Plextor PX-716A.
This test helps to evaluate the jitter of lands and pits for each length from 3T to 14T. If you’re familiar with the results the test station CD CATS shows on its output, I could compare this to the Land and Pit Histograms – the display of the results and the overall point of the test are the same in this case.
The diagram for each length is a normal or Gaussian distribution of the deviation of the lengths of pits and lands from the etalon. The measurements are performed in three areas of the disc: beginning, middle, end. This procedure is repeated on each layer of a dual-layer disc.
Let’s try to clear out what these diagrams show, exactly. So, the top point of the graph is the average value of land/pit lengths in this sampling. Ideally, this point should coincide with the etalon length (i.e. zero jitter), which is marked as the green vertical line in the diagram. If the top point of the graph doesn’t coincide with the green line, the quality score goes down – this is reflected in the Peak Shift parameter which shows the deviation of the average land/pit value from the etalon value. The width of each cone-shaped zone shows the deviation of the lengths (that is, the jitter value). If a zone is narrow, and the neighboring zones are far from each other, then the jitter rate is low. It means you have a high-quality disc. But if some of the neighboring areas overlap, then the deviations of two adjacent lengths (for example, 3T and 4T) are out of the norm. It would result in more errors at reading the disc.
This is a truly indispensable feature. Coupled with the Beta/Jitter results, TA Test helps to evaluate more accurately the jitter rate of the written disc and make deductions about the quality of the optical system of the drive. As you see, you get independent results on each of the lengths here rather than just an averaged jitter rate of all the lengths.
These have been the basic and the most interesting functions of the new optical drive from Plextor. Now we can proceed to the practical part of this review to see how this device performs in tests.
I run the synthetic CD WinBench 99 test as our traditional starter.
The identical speed formula for processing CD media leads to the drives having almost the same results in this test; at least their linear read speeds are similar on the outermost tracks of the disc as well as on the innermost ones. The Plextor PX-716A, however, has a smaller access time, and this fact affected the overall score this drive got. But on the whole the two optical drives have identical speed characteristics.
Verbatim Datalife 52x blanks were used for this test.
As I said above, the identical speed formula means we’re unlikely to see any big difference in the time the drives take to burn or read a CD. Here, both devices wrote the test media in almost the same time. Note that Plextor’s drives are still persistent in their dislike of 24x burn speed: the 712A and 716A both refused to burn discs at this speed.
Reading the burned CD-R disc at maximum speed:
Plextor PX-716A (left) and Plextor PX-712A (right)
The new model has an excellent result here, too. Like the previous model, it produced a smooth, clear graph, without any fluctuations of speed. The maximum read speed was successfully achieved.
Once again we register identical speeds, but the new Plextor is somewhat better in random seek time. As for the biggest differences between the old and new models, the Plextor PX-716A has a much higher burst transfer rate, but is considerably worse than its predecessor in the full disc recognition time parameter. But you may remember me saying earlier that the tray eject and load times can be regulated. I performed these tests with the default settings, i.e. with the slowest speed of the tray and the lowest level of noise. It means we can improve this parameter, if necessary. As an experiment, I chose the fastest tray speed for the Plextor PX-716A, and the disc load time diminished in double, to 10.86 seconds. This result is already among the fastest. So, it’s all up to you if you prefer more speed or more silence.
Now let’s see how good the Plextor PX-716A is at burning CD-R media.
Plextor PX-716A burning/reading a CD-R disc at 48x speed
No problems occurred during the burn session – the speed doesn’t go down anywhere, and the graph is straight and clear. The previous model also had no difficulties at burning discs at this speed, though. Judging by the errorless read graph, we can expect the resulting disc to be of a highest quality. I’m going to check this out right now:
Quality of the CD-R disc burning by Plextor PX-716A at 48x speed
The result doesn’t disappoint me – the quality of the disc is excellent. The average BLER is less than 10, and there are few first encoder errors (6,850 in total), while second-encoder errors are missing altogether. The jitter rate is very low; there are some fluctuations of the Beta parameter, but they are negligible and fit within the norm. You can also see that the asymmetry is growing up somewhat towards the end of the disc which is the consequence of the increase of the laser power the disc speed grows. In other words, this is an illustration of the operation of PoweRec technology.
That’s a fine start. Let’s see what we have at lower burn speeds.
Plextor PX-716A burning/reading a CD-R disc at 16x speed
The burning and the subsequent reading of the disc were performed without any problems: no slumps of speed, no irregularities in the graphs. What about the quality of the disc?
Quality of CD-R disc burning by Plextor PX-716A at 16x speed
There are 30% more first encoder errors here than on the disc recorded at 48x speed, but the total of C1 errors remains small anyway. There are still no second-encoder errors at all. The jitter rate has become higher, while the asymmetry has improved – there’s no need to increase the laser power here due to the use of the CLV burn algorithm. Thus, the Beta graph is almost a perfectly flat horizontal line.
Summarizing this, CD-R-related section of the review, I should note that the Plextor PX-716A produces excellent-quality CD-R discs at its maximum as well as reduced burn speeds. The new model is in fact among the best devices in its category as concerns CD-R burning. Yes, the quality of the disc written at the reduced speed is lower than at the maximum speed, but the difference is not very big at all. Moreover, a worse burning of CD-Rs at the minimal speed has become a common problem with almost all modern optical drives. I also wonder why Plextor ignores 24x burn speed. I should suppose they think modern media should be written either at the maximum speed (and the Plextor PX-716A does this job very well) or at the minimal one, using CLV algorithms. The in-between speeds are abandoned as non-optimal?
From write-once media we can go over to rewritable discs:
The drives take almost the same time to perform this task, which is quite natural considering their identical burn speeds. We have one difference, though. The older model refused to work with 32x rewritable discs, while the Plextor PX-716A successfully burned such a disc at 24x speed. Now, let’s examine the quality of the resulting discs:
Plextor PX-716A burning/reading a 24x CD-RW disc at 24x speed
The new model uses the P-CAV algorithm for burning 24x CD-RWs. It also takes very little time to reach the maximum speed, so it has one of the fastest overall results in its class. The minor throbbing of speed at the beginning of the disc didn’t affect the overall burn time. Judging by the problem-less reading of the written disc, we can expect a high burn quality, again.
Quality of 24x CD-RW burning by Plextor PX-716A at 24x speed
The quality is excellent on the whole. The average BLER across the entire surface of the disc is below 20, save for the outermost tracks. But the drive made a slip at the end of the disc – there is a surge of first encoder errors there, and quite a number of C2 errors which have been missing before. That’s no very crucial, though, as to a signal of a bad burn quality. It is not perfect, yes, but it’s not bad, either. On the other hand, the disc couldn’t pass the Beta/Jitter test, which aborted at the same very spot where there was the surge of errors. Until that moment, the jitter rate and the asymmetry are both within the norm. I tried to read this CD-RW in several other drives and each of them read it correctly, without any errors. So again, the results of this test seem worse than they really are – the quality is acceptable and even excellent if we disregard the outermost tracks. The problem may come from some imperfections in the burn strategy or may be due to a single failure in the operation of the device’s logics. This defect will hopefully be corrected in the next firmware update, and the new Plextor will have a near-etalon burn quality with rewritable CDs, too.
Plextor PX-716A burning/reading a 32x CD-RW disc at 24x speed
The burning was done without any problems like speed slumps or anything. The drive reached its maximum speed the same moment as it did with the 24x CD-RW disc – this explains the identical burn times. The read graph for the resulting disc has a curious shape, though. It’s unusual – the jagged read curve and the perpetually changing speed indicate that there’s something wrong with the quality of the written disc. Let’s see what it is, exactly.
Quality of 32x CD-RW burning by Plextor PX-716A at 24x speed
Here’s the answer – we’ve got an abnormally high level of first encoder errors. Moreover, there are C2 errors on the disc, including 22 uncorrectable E32 errors. It’s no wonder then that the disc just couldn’t pass the Beta/Jitter test.
Although the drive did burn a 32x CD-RW, the quality of the resulting disc is very low. The disc is readable, but I wouldn’t vouch for its readability in other drives. But on the other hand, the Plextor PX-716A doesn’t support 32x CD-RWs officially.
So, here’s my summary of the CD-related part of this review: the new Plextor produces CD-Rs of an excellent quality at both maximum and minimal speeds, but has some problems with CD-RW media. But after the next firmware update (I’m absolutely sure it’s going to be released soon) the Plextor PX-716A will surely become one of the best optical drives for processing CD-R/RW media. You may remember the times when Plextor’s drives were awful with these types of media, but it is different now – the manufacturer has realized at last that users are still interested in the CD part of an optical combo-drive.
Yet, the new Plextor still refuses to read bad, damaged CDs. There should have been a section in this review about the drive’s reading a damaged CD-ROM, but the PX-716A just stopped after the first bad (unread) sector, and I couldn’t urge it on to continue – I had to extract the disc to unfreeze the system. I don’t know why, but the manufacturer must have some reasons for ignoring your having bad compact discs.
Reading single-layer and dual-layer molded DVD-ROMs:
Plextor PX-716A (left) and PX-712A (right)
The PX-716A reads DVD Video discs at a lower speed than the older model does, so the total read time differs by more than a minute. But the two drives behave much alike to each other overall – there are fluctuations in speed and slowdowns on the outermost tracks. The slowdowns are bigger with the PX-712A due to the higher read speed and they start earlier than with the PX-716A. The dual-layer disc provoked no troubles with any of the drives: the read graph is clear and smooth. The read time of the two devices also coincides to a second in this case.
Verbatim DataLifePlus media (manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemical and Taiyo YudenF) were used for the tests.
DVD-R: Both drives finished the burn session in the same time at the minimal speed: the previous model is just 12 seconds faster. At 8x burn speed, however, the new drive took quite a typical amount of time to write a blank, while the Plextor PX-712A did the same in as many as 11 minutes, which is not normal for this burn speed. I should remind you that PoweRec technology intervened in this case and the drive just slowed down in the second half of the disc, with all the consequences. It’s nice the new drive doesn’t have this defect. Unfortunately, none of the models could work with DVD-R discs at speeds above the rated one (I used 8x blanks), so I didn’t have an opportunity to check out 12x or 16x DVD-R burn speeds.
DVD+R: The drives are very close to each other up to 16x speed. The Plextor PX-712A is a little ahead at 4x and 8x, but the new model is faster at 12x, but with the same very small advantage. In general, the Plextor drives process discs of that type quite fast in average, if we compare them with other devices, but the difference between the available models amounts to no more than 30 seconds. This half a minute hardly matters in practice. You can also see 6x DVD+R burn speed for the first time here. Starting from firmware 1.03, the Plextor PX-716A supports this burn speed with dual-layer blanks and, what’s more important, 2.4x discs were successfully burned at 6x. We’re going to check out the quality of this burning shortly.
DVD+RW: The new model is faster with media of this type. The difference between the drives is almost the same – about 60 seconds – at min as well as the max speed. That’s not much, but noticeable at real work. Unfortunately, discs rated for speeds above 4x are yet unavailable, and DVD+RW 4x Overspeed isn’t possible with available discs. So, it’s not yet possible to check out the functionality of the new model in full.
DVD-RW: And again both drives take the same time to burn a disc – the difference is so small (and only at the max speed) as to be negligible.
Now let’s examine the quality of DVD discs I burned in the new Plextor. Single-write formats come first.
Plextor PX-716A burning/reading a 4x DVD-R disc
The burning was done successfully – the fluctuation of speed in the diagram is nothing else but the consequence of the dynamic laser power correction all modern optical drives perform. The subsequent reading of the written disc provoked no problems, either. The single slowdown on the outermost tracks shouldn’t worry us much as it is due to a minor failure during reading. Now let’s check out the quality of the resulting disc and see if there are any changes since the previous drive from Plextor?
Quality of 4x DVD-R burning | |
Plextor PX-716A | Plextor PX-712A |
That’s simply an excellent performance! Plextor’s drives still hold the crown of the best optical drives for writing DVD discs. The older model already performed excellently, but the new device improves this performance even more – the total number of PI errors has decreased from 75,146 to 6,879. I should acknowledge, though, that there is a single spike of PI errors on the disc written by the PX-712A. Without this spike, the difference would be much smaller. Now let’s examine the quality of the disc written by the newer model in more detail:
Beta/Jitter and TA Test (Inner, Middle, Outer)
for the disc burned by Plextor PX-716A
The asymmetry is normal, with minor fluctuations which fit into the acceptable range. The graph shows quite clearly the moments where Running OPC comes into play. The jitter is normal, both in peaks and in average. The results of TA Test are indicative of a smaller jitter rate in the middle of the disc – its deviations are somewhat bigger on the innermost and outermost tracks. The overall result is very good, though.
So, we’ve got a high-quality disc at 4x speed, with a low level of errors and good Beta/Jitter showings.
Let’s now try to increase the burn speed to 8x.
Plextor PX-716A burning/reading a 8x DVD-R disc
There are no errors during the reading and burning processes – the graphs are clear, without slumps of speed. The maximum specified speed is achieved when reading the burned disc. Let’s now check out the quality of the resulting DVD-R.
Quality of 8x DVD-R burning | |
Plextor PX-716A | Plextor PX-712A |
Once again the new model puts on an excellent performance! The total number of PI errors has diminished by 98% (from the Plextor PX-712A’s 124,857 to the PX-716A’s 9,490), and the total number of PI failures by 99% (the Plextor 716A’s 77 against the PX-712A’s 9,408). This is, again, just excellent. Moreover, the average of PI failure blocks is 1 with the new drive, and the maximum of PI failures equals 2, while 4 is allowable by the industry standard. As for PI errors, the average error rate doesn’t exceed four whereas it was almost 20 with the previous model.
Beta/Jitter and TA Test (Inner, Middle, Outer)
for the disc burned by Plextor PX-716A
The asymmetry is almost ideal. The fluctuations are so small that it’s almost like we’ve got a zero beta value here. The jitter rate is uniform along the entire disc and is acceptable, too. TA Test also produces good jitter showings – they are not ideal, though, because the neighboring zones do overlap in the diagram.
So, the Plextor PX-716A performs outstandingly with DVD-R media. Having surpassed the good results of the earlier model, the new Plextor delivers almost perfect quality.
But what about DVD+R discs?
Plextor PX-716A burning/reading a 4x DVD+R disc
Without any slowdowns and without any errors, the drive successfully did the reading and burning of the blank at 4x speed. So, let’s get right to the quality check.
Quality of 4x DVD+R burning | |
Plextor PX-716A | Plextor PX-712A |
As you see, the results of the two discs are comparable, but the PX-716A again improves upon its predecessor. The total number of PI errors has diminished by 42% (from 14,972 to 8706), and the total of PI failures by 84% (from 460 to 81). The performance of the PX-712A had seemed already excellent, but the manufacturer succeeded in making it even better in the newer model!
Beta/Jitter and TA Test (Inner, Middle, Outer)
for the disc burned by Plextor PX-716A
The asymmetry is normal. It deviates but slightly from the zero mark, mostly on the outermost tracks. The jitter rate is normal, too, both in peaks and in average. TA Test also shows the drive’s ability to keep the pit and land lengths as they should be. The neighboring zones almost don’t overlap in the diagram, while the total quality score is somewhat reduced by the non-ideal Peak Shift (the average length of pits and lands is shifted relative to the standard). The result is overall excellent, though.
Plextor PX-716A burning/reading an 8x DVD+R disc
The burning was completed without problems. The drive uses the P-CAV algorithm with a very small time necessary to achieve the max burn speed. It helps the PX-716A to turn in one of the best results of this test as concerns the duration of the burn session, especially considering that some modern drives still use the Z-CLV algorithm even at 8x speed. The write graph again clearly shows the moments when the Running OPC mechanism adjusts the power of the laser. The resulting disc was subsequently read without errors and at the maximum declared read speed. Now let’s check out its quality.
Quality of 8x DVD+R burning | |
Plextor PX-716A | Plextor PX-712A |
The superb quality can be observed here, too. The previous model also produced high-quality discs at this burn speed: the quality was up to the mark almost on the entire surface of the disc, but there was a rather high spike of PI errors and failures on the outermost tracks that spoiled the overall impression somewhat. This latter defect is not present on the disc burned by the newer model: the highest quality is maintained throughout the entire surface of the disc. The number of PI errors has diminished by 45%, while the number of PI failures by a factor of 50! The PX-716A doesn’t cease to astonish us…
Beta/Jitter and TA Test (Inner, Middle, Outer)
for the disc burned by Plextor PX-716A
The asymmetry is within the norm; its deviations are small and acceptable. The jitter rate is almost the same along the disc: it is growing till the disc reaches its max burn speed and then the graph is almost a perfectly straight line. The results of TA Test also confirm the low jitter rate of the resulting disc. Minor overlaps occur at small pit/land lengths (3T-5T) that are the most difficult for any drive to maintain. The overall score is also somewhat reduced due to the average Peak Shift.
Burning/reading an 8x DVD+R disc at 12x speed | |
Plextor PX-716A | Plextor PX-712A |
Both models use the P-CAV algorithm for writing DVD+R discs at this speed. They also take the same time to achieve the maximum burn speed. The Plextor PX-712A couldn’t complete the burning at 12x, but slowed down to 10x and then to 8x. The PX-716A, on the contrary, successfully burned the disc through at 12x speed. But surprisingly, the difference in time between the two drives is only 6 seconds. I used the same blanks with both drives and didn’t disable the PoweRec mechanism. Thus, we have not only improvements in the burn strategy, but also in the optical system in the new model.
We can also see differences in the drives’ reading the resulting disc. The previous model dropped its read speed on the outermost tracks, just as it did when burning them. The Plextor PX-716A read the disc at the maximum speed, which is another confirmation of the point that the optical system has been improved. Now let’s check out the quality of the disc, too.
Quality of 8x DVD+R disc burned at 12x speed | |
Plextor PX-716A | Plextor PX-712A |
The difference is small, but noticeable: the number of PI errors has diminished from 18,184 to 13,086, and the number of PI failures from 181 to 55. This gap is wide enough for me to talk about a much better burn quality achievable with the new model. Note also that the level of PI errors and failures is higher at the beginning of the disc written by the PX-712A than at its end, but we don’t see the same with the disc burned in the new model. It makes me suppose the OPC mechanism has also been improved in the Plextor PX-716A.
Beta/Jitter and TA Test (Inner, Middle, Outer)
for the disc burned by Plextor PX-716A
The asymmetry of the disc is normal, but the jitter rate is not constant but fluctuating along the surface of the disc. It’s only after the drive has reached the maximum burn speed that the jitter graph becomes almost a perfect straight line. It seems like the drive had some problems with setting up the laser power accurately when working according to the CAV algorithm.
The results of TA Test, however, show that the drive maintains the lengths of pits and lands quite well. There are minor overlaps with small lengths, but the result is good overall. So, the written disc is of high quality, without doubt. Now let’s switch to the maximum, 16x speed.
Plextor PX-716A burning/reading an 8x DVD+R disc at 16x speed;
PoweRec is on
The drive reached the maximum speed, but couldn’t finish the work at 16x. The PoweRec mechanism must have thought this operational mode unallowable with this particular medium and dropped the speed to 12x. The resulting disc was read without problems. Let’s try to disable PoweRec and see if the PX-716A can burn a similar blank at 16x speed.
Plextor PX-716A burning/reading an 8x DVD+R disc at 16x speed;
PoweRec is off
It works! There’s a sudden jump from 14x to 16x speed and the drive finished the burning at 16x. We’ve got quite an original burn algorithm here. It is not CAV, but it is not yet P-CAV as we’re accustomed to see it. But it is closer to P-CAV anyway. The Plextor PX-716A does behave curiously in this mode as I have never seen any other drive behave. The time difference in comparison with the previous case (with PoweRec) is only 6 seconds, which is a gain, although a very small one. Minor beats and slumps of speed are observable during the reading of the area written at 16x. Now let’s take a blank rated for 16x speed and enable PoweRec and study the outcome.
Plextor PX-716A burning/reading a TDK DVD+R 16x disc;
PoweRec is on
It’s the same as you’ve seen above, when the 8x blank was being burned with disabled PoweRec. The duration of the burn sessions coincides to a second, too. There are bigger slowdowns here, however, and they too fall on the area where the drive used 16x burn speed. Thus, although TDK rates these discs for 16x, the quality is better with 8x Verbatim (manufactured by Taiyo Yuden)! Now, the most curious part of this test is comparing the discs written in this mode.
Quality of discs burning | ||
8x disc, PowerRec on | 8x disc, PowerRec off | 16x disc |
Here’s a curious picture for you: the level of PI errors grows up when the drive reaches 16x burn speed. With disabled PoweRec, the burn speed is dropped down and this immediately leads to a reduction of the number of errors. So, I should acknowledge it was right for the drive to slow down in this case. Now take a look at what happens with disabled PoweRec: the drive is increasing its burn speed steadily and the PI error rate is growing exponentially, to 800-900, which is much higher than the highest allowable peak of 280. Although the quality of the resulting disc degenerates much, it is readable, although at a lower speed. And what about the blank which is rated for 16x burn speed? We’ve got the same increase of PI errors at the maximum speed, although it is not as dramatic as with the disc rated for 8x burning. The peak of PI errors is about 50-60 on the outermost tracks – that’s not small, but absolutely within the allowable limits. It remains a mystery, however, why there’s a bigger reduction of the read speed here (the number of errors is smaller).
Thus, we have the following totals of PI errors and failures with the three discs:
In the latter case the higher total of PI failures is due to the lower quality of the blank itself rather than to the transition to 16x speed. You can also see that disabling PoweRec permits to use higher burn speeds with low-speed media, but at what price! The totals of PI errors and failures become 9 and 34 times higher, respectively, while the time gain is only 6 seconds! I don’t think such a big quality loss is worth those paltry six seconds. But we’re continuing our investigation.
Beta/Jitter for discs burned at 16x speed | ||
8x disc, PowerRec on | 8x disc, PowerRec off | 16x disc |
Let’s see what happens at the moment of transitioning to the maximum burn speed in different cases. With enabled PoweRec the Beta graph shows distinctly how the laser power is diminished – the drive switches to the lower burn speed. The jitter rate goes down, too. If PoweRec is off, this part of the graph changes diametrically: the laser power (and the asymmetry, too) is increasing along with the jitter rate. But when we use a 16x blank, we have the following at the moment of 14x-16x transition: the laser power goes up (as you can see in the extreme part of the Beta graph), while the jitter rate doesn’t change with a jump, but steadily. At the end of the disc the jitter rate becomes just like at 14x. The burning layer of this disc is intended for 16x, and this fact explains why we don’t have a sudden variation of the jitter rate on it.
TA Test for discs burned at 16x speed | ||
Inner | ||
8x disc, PowerRec on | 8x disc, PowerRec off | 16x disc |
Middle | ||
8x disc, PowerRec on | 8x disc, PowerRec off | 16x disc |
Outer | ||
8x disc, PowerRec on | 8x disc, PowerRec off | 16x disc |
The results on the innermost tracks of the disc aren’t interesting, so let’s get straight to the middle where the jitter rate is good in all the three cases, but the maximum burn speed hasn’t yet been reached. Take a look at the quality of the disc on the outermost tracks – where the drive used 16x burn speed – the difference is apparent. The jitter rate of the 16x disc and of the 8x disc with enabled PoweRec is good (the Peak Shift value is smaller with the 16x blank, though), but the jitter of the 8x disc forcibly written at 16x is obviously bad. The drive doesn’t maintain the required pit/land lengths which the Peak Shift score is an illustration of – it equals 1.
So, what have we learned from these tests? First, the new model from Plextor produces discs of an excellent quality at the maximum speed, but you should use blanks specifically rated for this speed. And in any case you should not disable the PoweRec mechanism – the time gain of 6 seconds isn’t worth the considerably worsened quality of the disc. If the manufacturer introduces some new technology in its device, then it has some reasons for that – the PX-716A is a good example of this point.
Reading a 4x DVD+R DL disc | |
Plextor PX-716A | Plextor PX-712A |
Some improvements are noticeable in the reading of the disc. The medium is read without errors and slowdowns. The previous model was rather unconfident at reading the disc (the Plextor PX-712A couldn’t burn dual-layer media, so I’m talking only about reading a molded DVD+R DL).
Burning/reading a DVD+R DL disc by Plextor PX-716A | |
4x disc | 6x disc |
Like I said before, the Plextor PX-716A can read DVD9 media at 6x speed starting from firmware revision 1.03. Dual-layer recordable discs rated for 2.4x support such burn speed, too. So we’ve got an opportunity to check out the burn quality at a speed which is almost thrice higher than specified.
The Plextor PX-716A did the burning of the blank at 4x speed successfully, save for the minor fall of speed which didn’t affect the total burn time. At 6x speed the drive produced a clear and smooth graph. The difference between 4x and 6x is quite conspicuous, amounting to almost 9 minutes. So, it makes sense to use the higher speed, if the quality is acceptable. The burned discs were read without errors, and we can now examine them from the standpoint of quality.
Quality of DVD+R DL burning by Plextor PX-716A | |
4x disc | 6x disc |
The quality of the disc written at 4x speed is not ideal, especially on the first layer. But the PI error rate is acceptable and even goes down on the second layer. This is a good result overall, but can be improved upon. It’s generally the same at 6x speed: the rate of PI errors and failures is higher on the first layer than on the second one. But the total number of errors is quite naturally higher at the higher speed. The blank is rated for 2.4x after all.
Beta/Jitter for DVD+R DL discs burned by Plextor PX-716A | |
4x disc | 6x disc |
Curiously, the asymmetry is normal in both cases, although there are deviations in the graph due to the correction of the laser power during the burn session. The jitter rate is, however, much better at 6x speed. It is also remarkable that besides fewer read errors the jitter rate varies less on the second layer of the disc. Let’s examine the latter effect closely.
TA Test for the first layer of the DVD+R DL disc burned at different speeds | ||
at 4x speed | ||
Inner | Middle | Outer |
at 6x speed | ||
Inner | Middle | Outer |
Here’s another confirmation to what we’ve seen above: the jitter rate is good at 4x speed, but is simply excellent at 6x speed! I can’t find an explanation – maybe the manufacturer has paid much more attention to the 6x burn strategy. What about the second layer?
TA Test for the second layer of the DVD+R DL disc burned at different speeds | ||
at 4x speed | ||
Inner | Middle | Outer |
at 6x speed | ||
Inner | Middle | Outer |
The jitter rate is somewhat worse, because it’s more difficult for the drive to process the second layer of a dual-layer disc, but the general picture is the same: the results are better with the disc burned at 6x. And another curious thing is that there are more errors but the jitter rate is smaller on the first layer. This may be explained by the better quality of the second layer of the disc (it is the second layer to be burned, but the first to be laid on the wafer).
Overall, the Plextor PX-716A boasts an excellent performance with DVD+R discs at any speed. It is only with the dual-layer media that it is not perfect. But frankly speaking, none of the available optical drives can boast an ideal burning of such discs, so we shouldn’t be too critical about the new Plextor in this respect. The noticed defects will be most probably corrected soon – the manufacturer is updating the firmware at a very rapid pace.
Next go the rewritable media formats.
Quality of 2x DVD-RW disc burning | |
Plextor PX-716A | Plextor PX-712A |
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Both drives succeeded in burning a DVD-RW disc. The new model doesn’t have the slumps of speed on the outermost tracks the previous model had when reading the burned disc. Does it mean the quality has been improved?
It is really so. There is no surge of PI errors and failures at the end of the disc the Plextor PX-712A suddenly dropped its read speed because of. The total number of PI errors has diminished almost in double with the new drive, but the total number of PI failures has become higher. PI failures occur more frequently, but their average rate doesn’t exceed 2 which is a very good result. Thus, the overall quality of burning DVD-RWs at the minimal speed has improved considerably.
TA Test for the DVD-RW 2x disc burned by Plextor PX-716A
It’s easy to see that the jitter is diminishing from the first tracks to the outermost ones which is an indication of an efficient laser power correction mechanism. The quality of the disc is good overall, although the jitter rate might have been smaller on the innermost tracks, considering the minimal burn speed.
Quality of 4x DVD-RW disc burning | |
Plextor PX-716A | Plextor PX-712A |
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No problems are observed with the burning and reading of the discs. Both devices successfully get the job done. Now we have only to compare the quality of the resulting discs.
The quality check yields very similar results – the total number of errors is almost the same with both drives. The difference is only in the distribution of the errors along the surface of the disc. The new model produces most of the errors on the innermost tracks, while the previous model has most errors in the outermost tracks. The quality of the discs is anyway superb in both cases.
TA Test for the DVD-RW 4x disc burned by Plextor PX-716A
The jitter rate is going down steadily from the inner tracks of the disc towards the outer ones. The jitter is overall lower than with the disc burned at 2x, so we can say that the DVD-RW 4x disc has a higher quality.
Quality of 2.4x DVD+RW disc burning | |
Plextor PX-716A | Plextor PX-712A |
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Each drive successfully burned a DVD+RW disc at 2.4x, but each met troubles reading the outermost tracks – the read speed goes down there. The new model experienced a worse slowdown than the previous one, which led to the difference of 20 seconds between them. As for the burn quality, the Plextor PX-712A turns in better results. It has three times less PI errors and almost five times less PI failures. It’s easy to see the reason for the reduction of the read speed on the external tracks – it is the surge of PI errors there. The surge is higher with the new model, so it experiences a bigger speed slump. I can’t say the disc produced by the Plextor PX-716A is of a bad or mediocre quality. No, it’s a good disc, but it is strange its quality is lower than that of the disc produced by the PX-712A model.
TA Test for the DVD+RW 2x disc burned by Plextor PX-716A
It’s strange but the new model cannot keep the jitter rate normal. The jitter rate was going down towards the outermost tracks with DVD-RWs, but now it is almost constant. By the way, it is not the first device whose developers don’t care much about burning DVD+RWs at the min speed. Maybe quality improves at 4x speed?
Quality of 4x DVD+RW disc burning | |
Plextor PX-716A | Plextor PX-712A |
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There were no problems with the burning/reading of the test medium – both drives never slow down, producing clear and smooth graphs. So we can get right to the quality of the disc. Here’s another surprise for you: the burn quality has degenerated much since the older model. The rate of PI errors and failures has grown up considerably. The disc produced by the Plextor PX-716A is still almost perfect – few other drives available can work with rewritable media like that. But the results have got worse in comparison with the PX-712A. That’s not quite right.
TA Test for the DVD+RW 4x disc burned by Plextor PX-716A
Despite the somewhat higher error rate, the jitter is very good. It goes up a little on the outermost tracks, but is good overall. So, the new model produces DVD+RW discs of a very high quality at 4x speed.
Summarizing the performance of the Plextor PX-716A with DVD media, I should say the new model is a worthy successor to the previous hit, the PX-712A, and produces DVD discs of an astonishing quality. The burn strategy for dual-layer discs and the burning of rewritable DVD+RW discs at the minimal speed needs some improvement, but even here the drive is very good, although not perfect (I would really want to see it deliver superb performance in any mode with any type of the medium). Unfortunately, I can’t yet evaluate the drive’s performance at rewriting discs at the maximum speeds it supports due to the absence of such media in shops. But as soon as they appear on the market, we will test them, too.
Although the drive can return C2 errors, EAC still doesn’t “see” this function, but you shouldn’t be too sad about this fact, considering the powerful audio capturing tools available in the PlexTools suite. What’s strange is the implementation of the caching of audio data in the new drive. I don’t understand what they have done this for.
The write offset equals the read offset in the new model (the same as we saw with the PX-712A). That’s a certain advantage of the drive, especially for those users who are seriously working with audio information. The drive can also read the auxiliary areas of the disc, both Lead-In and Lead-Out. The new model reads five sectors more from Lead-Out than its predecessor. Overall, the PX-716A is among the best at processing audio.
Now let’s try it at a real task. I’m going to extract the tracks from two audio CDs. One disc is normal, and the other is bad, i.e. has mechanical damage.
There are no significant changes since the previous model – both drives have very similar results, except the Fast mode where the PX-716A behaves rather strangely. The new drive performed the task well enough, although it can’t claim the title of the fastest drive for processing audio. But that’s the task where speed is not the most important thing, though.
As I said above, EAC didn’t find the drive capable of returning C2 errors, so I don’t offer you the results of the DAE Quality Test. Instead, I offer you something new. We’ve expanded our test methods to include a test which determines the drive’s ability to copy copy-protected compact-discs.
You can read the description of this test here. In brief, the drive is tested for its ability to copy discs protected with different versions of Safe Disc. The developers of the popular CloneCD program use the following drive classification:
According to this classification the Plextor PX-716A gets two sheep. It’s a good, although not the best possible result. But well, there are very few products in the market to deserve three sheep.
The new model seems a worthy replacement to its predecessor. Despite the rather strange release to market, the Plextor PX-716A in its current shape is an optical drive of highest quality and functionality. And considering the manufacturer’s desire to increase the drive’s speed formula through firmware updates, we can hope for a long lifecycle of this device.
There are still some minor defects, of course, but the overall impression from the drive is highly positive. It’s among the best devices in terms of ergonomics: the speed of the tray is controlled by the user, so you can make it completely noiseless. The abandonment of the spindle regulator has led to more noise at the maximum speeds, but this noise isn’t very loud. The disc recognition time is among the best, too. You’ll surely like the opportunity to control everything or almost everything in your optical drive, without third-party utilities. I could complain at the rather high price of the device, but Plextor’s products have always been elite and just can’t be cheap. Then, if you sum up all the advantages of this drive, you won’t think its price overstated.
And here are the highs and lows of the Plextor PX-716A, in brief:
Highs:
Lows:
