Which Plextor is better?

Which one of these is better? The PX-716A or the PX-760A? The desktop it will reside in currently has a Lite-On SHM-165PS MSOR that works good. I use this computer for data more than multimedia.

I'd prefer the 760 over the 716.

Thanks. So be it.

just wait for kg_evilboy

Also called Mr. 716A

The fact that Plextor makes the best DVD burners is a given. If you have Serial ATA (SATA) connectors on your motherboard then there is only one Plextor DVD burner to purchase. The latest and greatest Plextor SATA burner is the PX-810SA.

Day before yesterday I received the two that I bought online for $86.69 each and that included shipping. There was no tax becasue I purchased them from an online store in another state.

If you don't as yet have a motherboard that supports SATA then you should look at the Plextor PX-800A which is Plextor's high end IDE DVD burner.

Eric

The PX-810SA and the PX-800A are no real Plextors.

The last real Plextors where the PX-760A/SA, PX-755A/SA, PX-716A/SA.
All of this Plextor drives are today very hasrd to find, and if you find it they are expensive...

Greetz

th_mi

PS: I do not say the PX-810SA or PX-800A are bad drives, I only say that this drives are only rebagged drives, no real Plextors.

Well I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Plextor is alive and well and still lives in Asia.

When I bought my PX-716SA everyone in these groups said that it would be the last Plextor burner to be a real Plextor. The when I purchase my PX-755SA everyone said the same thing.

Guess what, now that I have two Plextor PX-810SA's, yep you guessed it, everyone is now saying it is a re-badged some thing or other. If in fact they are re-badged burners then Plextor found the very best quality burners that were available.

Well, I had the PX-755SA for over a year and never created a coaster, and in the last couple of days, I have given both my new PX-810SA's that I purchased and installed a real workout; and guess what, NO COASTERS.

I don't know about the rest of you folks, but no coasters is what I strive for. Having said that, I also only use the very best Verbatim single and dual layer white inkjet printable blanks.

My first Plextor was a 1X SCSI CD-ROM that I purchased in 1994, and have purchased nothing but Plextors since.

PS: Don't bother asking for a scan, I don't need no stinking scans, to tell me how great my Plextors are.

Eric

Does your PX-810SA support Plextools? Does it support quality checks? Does it support Autostrategy? Does it support VariRec? does it suppoer GigaRec? does it support PeweRec?

All newer real Plextor drives support this: PX-716, PX-755, PX-760, Plextor Premium (I and II) CD burner...

The PX-800/810 does not have one of this things... so I don't believe it is a real Plextor drives, in the past the features I was asking for where the special stuff making the Plextors interesting....

And I believe you when you say the PX-810 is not a bad device, I also have a DSamsung and a LG burner and they are really ok...

Actually scanning is the best way to tell the quality of the burn. Some DVD readers are more sensitive to quality of burn than other drives.

I'm sure the PX800, 810 are excellent drives, but if they're rebranded from another manufacturer, then why pay double for the Plextor name, when you have another company's components. Also plextools do not come with these newer rebranded drives further indicating that they're copies of a cheaper drive.

th_mi

I'm sorry to say that I have never installed the software that came with any of my Plextor drives.

However; if you say they aren't real Plextors then I believe what you say. Having said that, can you tell me who actually makes the guts for my Plextor PX-810SA's?

They are really outstanding drives and would like to purchase more. Please be kind enough to tell me what Brand Name and Model to look for.

Eric

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Last edited by Eric545; 21-07-2007 at 04:14.

Itchy73

I said it before and I'll say it again. I have never scanned (I have never installed scanning software), and have found no reason to start now.

For me the truth lies in the fact that I almost Never, Ever Create Coasters (I did create one earlier this year) and that is a lot to say about any burner.

I also maintain that using Verbatim Single 16X and Dual Layer 2.4 - 6X White Inkjet Printable DVD+R's is at least half the reason that I almost never create coasters.

Like you; I did have one PX-760A, which I bought while waiting for my old PX-755SA's to become available in the U. S. The PX-760A was OK, however; while burning with it I did manage to create a few coasters.

For me and for now; I will stick with the two PX-810SA's that I installed day before yesterday.

So far I have burned more than 120 single and dual layer discs between them; without creating a single coaster.

PS: I have three computers that are networked but, I only use two for burning DVDs. The third computer is used for printing direct to DVD using my Epson R340 Printer. In answer to your last question, Yes, the Epson Print-To-CD/DVD Software and R340 Printer perform in an OUTSTANDING manner!

Eric

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Last edited by Eric545; 21-07-2007 at 04:12.

The current evidence points to the drive being a rebadged Pioneer drive, supposedly the 212 model, a forum search will give you the details. Paying a large price premium for a branding seems strange to me, but it is each persons choice

I have had many DVD Burners. Pioneer Sucks! I had one PX 716 Plextor that outlasted 8 Pioneer's I had a Plextor PX-708 which my son still uses. I have a PX-760 which I think is the best DVD Drive I have ever seen. The PX-716 after 2-3 Years of Heavy Use. It still works ok but noticing Burns having a squiggle of 1/4 inch x 1/4 inch on the outside of the DVD.

Weird it looks like a little Flame like a watermark or something. So I have been slowly when replacing things trying to go with all SATA Drives. Got a new Samsung 500 Gb Sata HDD and tonight I just pulled out the PX-716 and put in a new PX-810SA.

I can see what people mean by it could be a Re-Bag Drive. Like I said I have had Many Plextor Drives and this is the first one I seen with a RAISED UP Ejection button. Also the tray looks funny as it has rounded corners. The LED is Rectangular and all of my other drives have always been a Round LED.

The drive looks less Sleeker than the other PX-708 , PX 716 and my PX-760 All drives I still have. My personal opinion is it looks like a LITE-ON Shape and look.

But as the one guy said Coasters is the bottom line. And in my opinion Longevity. How long it last will make or Break my feelings on the drive. Plextor in my book in the past has out performed and out lived all of my Lite-on's and Pioneer JUNK! I had a HP DVD drive and I had a Creative one. Actually the Creative Labs Drive I had was pretty good.

But if this PX-810SA can last as long and perform as good as my other Plextor DVD drives then I would not care if they were made by my Granny. As long as they worked well and lasted as long as I expect a Plextor to live.

Just my 2 cents!

I will add I am burning with it as I write and I did notice one thing although I think it's a weird happening. Roxio 9 will only burn at x12 with it. Saying that it is a Suggested x16 (hmm thought it was a x18) but does not have supported Descriptors.

Well actually it says This:

Manufacturer Rated Speed 16.0x 22160KBp
Available Write Descriptor CLV 12.0x 16620KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 8.0x 11080KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 6.0x 8310KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 4.0x 5540KBps
Data area starting sector 30000h
Linear Density 0.267um/bit
Track Density 0.74um/track
Number of Layers 1

For some reason it will not burn at x16 as my DVD are TDK x16's. OK I know I will hear "Why you using those?" Well Radio Shack has been selling 50 packs for 10.99 sorry can't pass that by.

But I also have Memorex x16's and that makes no difference still only a x12 burn. Now this is the first night using this and tomorrow I might turn on the computer and it will have my x16 there. But for right now I'm doing x12 burns. Still pretty fast and nice so far. Have not looked at the Disc and see if they play or not.

And it is nice data streams coming from my SATA HDD and this SATA DVD drive. Very clean transfers as far as I see.

Anyone know why I can not get x12 burns?

Well, the 810SA is a Pioneer (model 112 in think, or 212 as the SATA model is called) and Pioneer drives have a long history of having a rather slim 16x speed support. These drives 'know' about 16x media like other drives but for a big part only 12x writing speed is implemented. In other words these drives only write with 12x too many 16x capable media. If you want 16x speed you'll need to find media that are supported up to 16x.

You can find Pioneers supported media lists here:
http://wwwbsc.pioneer.co.jp/product-...v00003r_e.html
Since Plextor doesn't change original Pioneer firmware significantly (or not at all except for replacing "Pioneer" with "Plextor") it should be valid for the 810SA too.

You can use CD-DVD-Speed ( http://www.cdspeed2000.com/ ) to identify the media ADIP code as shown in the list above. Thus you can identify the true maker of the media since some companies (like TDK) also/just resell other make of media and do not produce any themselves.

Read this tread and compare the pictures and you'll know the PX-810SA is a Pioneer 212.

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=224142

th_mi

That is a shame if this is true because Pioneer sucks. I still have my Pioneer. It's a reminder to me not to buy any more of their junk. It's a Model DVR-A09XLB1. I bought it at Best Buy and I kept the box and receipt and when it started burning Frisbee's I took the whole deal back and got a new one.

I am using TDK Disc's though. It should be supported. but like all of their Pioneer Crap I guess I have yet another Junkie Drive from them. Anyone know of a model of actual Plextor made SATA drive? I will try and research this further

I believe the 760SA is.

I will see if I can find some pictures of that. The shape gives it away for me. Not to say that this PX-810SA might not be a good drive. But Pioneer scares me I honestly went through 7 of those Drives at Best Buy before my Plextor PX-708 (which is still working for my son by the way) was removed. And I only removed it because of the PX-716 was faster.

I will look into the PX-760 and see if there is a SA version around. I always heard that Plextor was the Cadillac of Burners. But I never believed that till I owned one. I see now why at one time they were more expensive than the other brands.

I forgot to add that the Transfer rate between my PX-810SA and my Samsung SATA 500 Gb HDD was really good. On the IDE channels I was getting on a DVD5 from a DVD9 Compression around a 2.65 Mb/s Xfer Unless I had no compression this was top speed. Even with the SATA HDD which made no difference at all being envolved with the Xfer.

The limitations I believe of the IDE PATA Xfer was the weakest link in the chain. Now with the PX-810SA and the Samsung Sata I am getting more respectable 7.8 - 8.2 mb/s Xfers. That was rather empressive. Even though with my old Pioneers they would last 2 months and then they would freeze my whole system up by locking up and making a Coaster.

It was like the Servo motor stopped turning mid burn and the system did not know what to do. The platter was not turning. It would start by little by little burning 90 percent then 80 then 50 and so on till it just locked up and burned nothing. It would also start to not read disc. That is why I figured it was most likely a motor not turning problem.

This (760SA) is only available for outside USA. In USA, 755SA is the latest available REAL Plextor SATA burner.

Yes that was all I could find on Ebay or on the net was the PX-755SA. This seems to be the real deal in Plextors. It only has a x16 Burn for DVD's though vs. the X18 Burn of the Plextor PX-760. But the extra X2 is really no big deal.

There is no Blanks out there that have x18 speed that I know of now. So I will most likely try and purchase a PX-755SA. This 810 read speed is pretty impressive though. x4 over the PX-760 PATA IDE platform.

Forgot to mention that the PX-810 Burned a Coaster last night and locked up my system. That did not make me happy and something I can honestly say Other Plextors have not done to me. Other than my loading the system down with multi-tasking.

There should be no difference between the IDE 760A and SATA 755SA for read speed; both will read pressed single-layer DVD-ROMs at 16x and burned SL media at 12x.

Not sure what the differences are. But the IDE to IDE Xfer vs. the SATA to SATA Xfer is 4 times. My personal opinion is that this Mother Board with a Marvell IDE controller is at fault. I have a


ASUS P5WD2-E Premium LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard w/Intel Pentium D 940 Presler 3.2GHz LGA 775 EM64T Processor Model BX80553940
4Gb Gskill PC6400 (Dual channel 800 MHz) << Only see 3 Gb due to 32 bit XP limits
FSP Group (Fortron Source) FX700-GLN ATX12V V2.2/EPS12V 700W Power Supply
IDE Drives:
2 x 300Gb PATA 133 Maxtor IDE Drives
1 x 250Gb PATA 133 Maxtor IDE Drive
1 x 500Gb SATA 3.0 Samsung Drive
1 x Plextor PX-760 x18 IDE DVD Burner
1 x Plextor PX-810 x18 SATA ATA 150 Burner (but can't due over x12 and is a Pioneer Junk Drive)
ATI Radeon 1900 XTX Crossfire 512 Mb Vid Ram
LG 22" Flatron Wide L226WTY-BF Black 22" 2ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 3000:1
Creative Labs FXI Sound Card

Now I have problems with this Marvell Internal IDE Controller on the MoBo. Channel 2 will not even work so I was forced to use a PCI Controller.

The Marvell SATA Controller on the Mother Board is pretty good. No problems with it (knock on wood) But even on the Marvell Controoler channel on. I have a PLEXTOR PX-760A and one of the MAXTOR 300 Gb. Drives. Even a copy to copy across that channel still gets a 2.65 mb Xfer rate. If no compression is needed it will sometimes do a 7.6 mb. But rare!