BenQ forum surpasses Plextor forum

In number of total posts, if not number of threads.

This probably wouldn't have happened if we'd seen something from Plextor that we actually liked. Instead,

- No new firmware in many months for the "flagship" product that still can't do 16x burning
- BenQ rebadge and slot loader (reusing existing chipset) are only ODD hardware products released in the last 12 months
- Plextools moves to commercial revenue model, Plextor becomes overly aggressive (towards its own fan/user community) defending the exlusivity of its functionality

The net effect? I'm in the pipe to get a BenQ 1640 and will probably spend more time in that forum than here. That's too bad because I've seen the other forums and the Plex forum is the best - great, knowledgeable contributors; excellent moderation, proven by how few threads get closed; a well laid-out FAQ and only 3 sticky ("read first") threads making it easy for newbies.

Hopefully we'll see something new here soon, but the way Plextor is going, I doubt it.

Hey ftp, you're bored eh?

According to stats, Plextor forum still have more threads and about the same posts. As of Sept 16, 2005:

Plextor DVD Burner (22 Viewing) - Threads: 3,384 - Posts: 38,417
BenQ DVD Burner / Philips DVD Burner (38 Viewing) - Threads: 2,670 - Posts: 38,424

1. BenQ forum is now more active because they just released BenQ 1640 with new features and people is currently playing around with it. The SolidBurn/OverSpeed/WOPC features are actually similar with Plextor's AutoStrategy/PoweRec. We had the time when we were experimenting those features do we? And at that time Plextor forum is quite active.

2. Many Plextor, NEC and Liteon fans own BenQ as their additional drive but not otherwise. You probably know the reason.

3. For me firmware 1.08 for PX-716A is doing a great job for my media collection (30 MIDs) and I'm not so excited waiting for the new firmware.

Btw, why do you compare Plextor forum with BenQ's, and not with NEC or Liteon or Living Room?

Yeah, kinda. AKA "Plextor ownership".

I've been watching this for about a month, when the BenQ forum was about 2000 posts behind. It gained on the Plex forum by about 90-100 posts per day and I predicted to myself it would pass on/about September 20.

Something tells me that MCSE, WOPC, and SolidBurn will still be discussed in a year's time. Meanwhile, "Autostrategy" turned into "buy Taiyo Yuden discs and everything will be fine" and no one talks about it any more.

The fact that you can buy a 1640 & 3540 (or a 1693 & 4165b) and still have enough left over to buy a 50-spindle of TY blanks for the price of ONE 716?

No question about it, the Px716 is a wonderful 14x burner. Experts predict that one day 16x burning will be possible.

Because the BenQ forum was at least 10,000 posts behind the Plex forum when I first joined and now it's ahead. Check again at the start of October; it will be 2000 posts ahead. And the less said about the Living Room, the better!

I agree with Zevia.

I agree with Noam Chomsky.

I don't really get the 716's aversion to burning at 16x myself. I just ran the Media Quality check on an MCC004 disc using my 716UF, which checked out good at 12x. The FE-TE test said the disc was suitable for burning at maximum speed, and the Write Transfer test (simulation) showed a full 16x burn. But when I actually wrote to the disc, the speed dropped about 1/3 through the burn It'll burn at 16x when it wants to, in fact both of my 716 units will, but just not very often. I wonder if there is some limitation in the Sanyo chipset used, or is the problem Plextor's write strategies?

I concur!
I also agree when you write:
"The fact that you can buy a 1640 & 3540 (or a 1693 & 4165b) and still have enough left over to buy a 50-spindle of TY blanks for the price of ONE 716?"
Chomsky has denied membership in the BENQ cult, however.

We can only hope someone at Benq is reading this. They have a wonderful opportunity to become the world choice of burners. There is no shortage of excitement with the 1640 and with work and care and desire Benq could capture the market in yet future products with as much or even more excitement. BUT do not do what Plextor does: Example the 712. No further support when it was less then a year old. I will not revisit Plextor again.



still waiting for a july or later batch of 1640's at newegg to become in stock

I thought firmware 1.07 for the 712A came out this year...

Disabling PoweRec is not enough?

I know, once I said the same thing. But I can confim that my BenQ, NEC, Liteon (and Plextor) cannot write at 16x without any coaster even on quality media. The only exception is (probably) LG 4163 but it's just because I use it only to test 100 disk and only 20 of them @16x. Compare to thousand on other burners.

If you "push" the drive to write at a full 16x, PoweRec, OPC, WOPC, Solidburn, etc is not enough to avoid coaster. Slowing down the speed in Plextor 716A is actually a smart decision in my opinion.

It did but the drive is now listed in the history bin. There was no obvious improvment at least from my chair from 1.05 to 1.07 In any case mine (14 months old) just died. It is not a system problem. Reading the forums many 712's are dying at slightly more then 1 year old. 14 months ago I paided $160 at newegg for my 712. It has left me with a bad taste. I will never travel down that path again. Treat us well even if it means an extra $10 (manufacture) for the effort and we will support you Benq

I'm not sure exactly what kind of support you mean if not new firmware releases, and Plextor even released new firmware for the 708A this year, which is long since and end-of-life product.

@bkf. Just an FYI. Last Dec I went out and bought a Lite On 1633 drive because Lite On advertised a FW (BS42) update that would allow 12x burning for an +R media. I already had an 851 and 832 Lite On drive. Well the FW update never materialized so I was basically stuck with three writers that were the same. Anyways my point is all manufactures tend to drop the ball in light of newer faster drives. I am still pissed at Lite On though.
@Two Degrees. Yeah I wish I could figure out why P/R behaves that way, but like zevia says works better with it on than off for most media.
@ftp1020 Yes I would like a new FW yesterday.

Just face the facts guys - Plextor now s**** big time. They are not even 1/10th of what they used to be; except for their prices which are still the highest in the industry. I have said good-bye to Plextor and for good reasons.

By the way, I agree with ftp1020

It's likely how I feel about Plextor is at least partially known. It's just the fact that if someone pays top $ for something, one expects top performance, especially when it's hyped or has a certain reputation. Just imagine if someone bought BMWs because of their quality reputation, yet suddenly every BMW were as much of a lemon as the Buick Royale (rampant problems with cooling systems, electrical systems, engine--even engines going up in flames AND they had been properly maintained... every category was either next to lowest or the lowest in quality ratings). How long could BMW convince people to keep buying it because of their past reputation, when the present is obviously lousy? Imagine if the problem were compounded by awful customer service and the customer getting the runaround constantly. If they didn't improve in a hurry, it wouldn't take long to wreck years of a "good reputation" and put them out of business.

Considering the Plextor price tag, any consumer that has a defective drive should be sent a postage paid label to ship either Fed-Ex or UPS back to Plextor, and ideally need only one RMA to get a great unit. The corollary to that is when any informed user sends Plextor burn scans and observations on write strats that are obviously lacking, those users should see the fruits of their labor in the next fw update. A user should also see the highest frequency of firmware updates on Plextor's part, and they should even be 'cutting edge' in comparison to other burners. The price one paid should be reflected in the quality of the product and great customer service. When this is not there, and the burns are more or less 'on par' with other burners (and clearly not the best)--not to mention long gaps between fw updates--this will turn many off in a hurry.

I'm forced to agree with FTP. The fact I could have gotten two burners for $90 USD (my second one now would have likely been a Liteon1693S) and
still had $32 to spare really disgusts me, especially since I don't have the money to burn. Add to that, from the area I'm in, I won't be able to sell my 716 for a fair price, so I would stand to come out farther behind, so it's a triple whammy. And the fact that I have to live with it and know I can't count on Plextor to deliver on how superb the burner should be is really the straw that breaks the camel's back. The fact that my BenQ1640 burns are as good and even better with some mids when compared against my 716... well, if the 716's as good as it's supposed to be *no one* would be able to get close...

Gents,

I too own a 716a (a recent addition to an aboslutely superb 708a which has been perfect since day one ) and have installed many other drives for friends but the most cost effective now are the BenQs (1620 and 1640). I recommend them for most non tech users. I got the 716a primarliy for the tools (like Plextool) and quicker single layer burning than the 708a. (Dual Layer will have to wait until media comes down a lot )

However, I just got my first 100 pack of Memorex branded RICOHJPNR03 which both Memorex and the Plex say will burn at 16X. If I do so the scans in Plextools are crap . If I go to 4X they are fine. Anyone know what gives?

The best thing I can tell you Jim is that the mid you mention seems to vary in quality quite a bit. I've noticed Zevia state he's gotten a good batch of those, but I've seen many others complain about the RICOHJPNR03 "quality." Offhand, I don't know a burner I've read about that burns that mid consistently well (again, b/c the media quality varies).

What I ment was anything other then the end of life cycle. But it no longer matters, the thing is dead. One could see the decline through those 14 months as I had to slow down the burn process to get a working dvd. This did not happen over night, it was not sudden. It was over 1 year old so I had no options. No funky FW nothing but Plextor site updates. The drive never once burned beyond a disc's rated speed which I lived with, never expected anything more. So now I have a $160 disc cleaner. Im not bitter but I will never go down the Plextor path again.

"I got the 716a primarliy for the tools (like Plextool)"

Without the mods getting mad how many copy's of any version (regular or XL)of plex tools do you want. There is no magic here or there. Plex tools IMHO was an effort that just died. It offers nothing more then I can not allready do.

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Last edited by bkf; 17-09-2005 at 05:09.

Well, the BenQ forum is certainly a fast grower. I remember when it had pretty much no posts (i.e., when it was first created ). And now, in about a year, it's grown to be the third largest forum in OD. You see a lot of NEC and LiteOn users who convert to BenQ, but not the other way around...

The momentum didn't change until the 1620. The 1620's ability to overspeed media in the stock firmware raised a lot of eyebrows, I think. And breaking LiteOn's monopoly on PI/PIF testing helped, too.

I confess;...... I am Plextor Fanboy.... who owns a DW1625....


Plextor needs to make a burner that has Labelflash and Lightscribe.

Expected this to happen long ago.

erm zevia, really? Maybe I am misreading you here.

You read it right. Why? Your drives never make a single coaster @16x?

I like my Plextor 716A for burning CD's (data and audio) and reading less than perfect condition disks. I like my BenQ 1640 for burning DVD's. I like both for their ability to do error scans, handle RW media, and reasonably frequent firmware updates. The difference is small across the board, except for reading difficult disks with the Plextor. I haven't ripped DVD's so I don't know which would perform better. I am also fortunate that I do not have to use dubious, lower tier media since I can find good quality Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden at prices I can afford (unless gasoline prices continue to skyrocket!).

I am pleased with the price to performance ratio with the BenQ, though I have only had it about six weeks and noone knows how long these units will last. I have owned my current Plextor (number 3 due to malfunctions in the first two) for the same time and am not as happy with the price to performance ratio nor the cost of ownership so far (since I had to pay to RMA). While the 716A performs quite well, its very high purchase price should be due to more than just the historical weight of its brandname. Ok. It included an 80 pin data cable, a blank Verbatim 16X DVD+R disk, PlexTools, additional black faceplate, paper manual and easy to reach tech support. Still for the money, I would expect a product unlike any other, or more features than similar products, or goldplated customer/tech support.

I'm not convinced I received three times the ODD or extras or customer support in the Plextor as compared to the BenQ. Yet, I view both of my ODD's like a parent with two children... I love them both, wouldn't trade either one, but know which one I would choose if I had to pick one to live with.

Concerning which forum has a bigger d**k, who cares! I read both forums because I have both OOD's. That the BenQ forum has more of this or that lately is probably due to it being the "latest and greatest" (what a fickle bunch we are) and that the 716A is a relatively mature product in which most problems/questions/posted scans have been done ad nauseum (a good thing in this case!)