Suggestions and feedback for Plextor

Whoops, just hours before my previous post, Plextools dev updated Plextools Pro to include improved LAME options. (Updated Vorbis libraries to 1.1.1 too, btw, thanks for being on top of that.) I wish I would've spied this before my above post, and this thread is not appropriate for a full report on the new options, but I will point out that there is still no actual Switch Field.

Although LAME options are improved now (even ability to set copyright bit! I'm impressed!), it is still impossible to truly customize one's encoding, specifically the use of --alt-preset and/or --preset tweaks with any degree of freedom. In fact, they completely ignored --alt-preset outright, but did made the --preset "presets" available, but it appears you can't modify them with additional switches like you ought to be able to. For example, taking advantage of the --alt-preset or --preset audio tweaks for CBR files, which is so easy to do in EAC or even by command line, is still quite impossible in Plextools. If you choose any of the --preset choices, the "VBR Method" will then be grayed-out... try it yourself. I don't want to minimize efforts at Plextools dev, but a special version of lame_enc.dll with a suspiciously similar range of presets (i.e. including no --alt-preset "presets", only --preset "presets"), has been available at rarewares.org for a long time. Maybe someone can investigate the similarities?

So it is still impossible to do anything with --alt-preset in Plextools, especially with making any CBR or ABR files. Plextools dev seems inexplicably determined to make all LAME options via integration into Plextools, instead of letting us learn how to use switches like they (thankfully) force us to with the Filename Construction. I think it would be easier on everyone just to give us a Switch Field, as LAME is too powerful, with too many switches available, to ever be able to use fully via DLL Integration. Otherwise, I will be an old man by the time Plextools dev gets around to adding full LAME capability. Some switch capabilities are esoteric, but the one I mentioned above is head-shakingly standard.

I would like to acknowledge Plextools dev for taking my suggestion of renaming the "Mode" field to the proper name of "Channel Mode". I would like to say that they gleaned this specifically from this group and my posts; no personal communication was given in this case. It is a small thing but adds credibility which is very important in the DAE community and therefore Plextools dev and Plextor the company.

I also want to laud Plextools dev for adding a Quality (q) setting! This is big news. A long time coming, too. I would be remiss if I did not mention this. Also the multiple VBR methods (Old, New). New LAME options layout is better, too.

Plextools dev, this horse will finally be dead when you provide a real switch field. You are obviously listening and motivated. Someone over there is motivated, anyway... to that person, I feel I speak for the CD Freaks Plextor community and countless lurkers when I say, "Thank you." I wonder what the holdup is to actually providing an "Extra Switches" field for those who want to use it? I hope Plextools dev didn't paint themselves into a digital corner as far as that's concerned. Again, I feel I speak for the Plextor DAE community when I say we look forward to a real switch field soon (i.e. next release?), to fully combine the power of LAME with the power of Plextools Pro.

Thank you again.

FE/TE-Test suggestion:

Currently the FE/TE-Test only works at a drives maximum speed and gives you a "good" or "not good" result with regard to the media inserted.

This is not very informative. So ok, the specific media is not good at 48x/52x, but what about 40x, and if not at 40x what about 32x, and if not at 32x what about ...?

Please provide either:

a) A manual speed selection for the FE/TE-Test (drop down box).

b) Add an iteration in the FE/TE-Test that starts with the drives top speed and on a "not good" results then continues testing with lower speeds until a "good" result is attained and then reports this as recommended speed.

Also in the help files, please provide an explanation what the scale used tells and what values should not be surpassed.

Suggestion: Add support for Prodisc 16x DVD-R (Prodisc.F02). Now the PX-716A can't even detect the media.

Problems with the latest PX-716A 1.08 firmware:
- terrible burn quality on Daxon AZ2 code media, PIE rate is > 100 and jitter is far higher than any of my other drives which can often burn at 12x or even 16x with better quality
- burn quality wasn't very good on Optodisc OR8 code media either, PIE rate is near 1 compared to drives like the DW1620, 4163B, and DVR-109 which have rates of 0.02, 0.03 and 0.05 respectively in my testing. I haven't done another test burn with 1.08 (1.07 results) yet so this may have improved...
- burn quality was the worst of my 5 test discs with Philips 041 DVD+RW media compared to DVR-109, 4163B, DW1620, and even a TS-H552U all with recent firmwares
- Ricoh R03 write quality was the worst of my 11 tests disc thus far, and it only burned at 12x despite claiming it was supported at 16x. 4 of the discs were burned at 16x as well (3500A, DW1620, and 4163B). Even the TS-H552U, which had a horrid PIE rate and higher jitter, had a far higher quality score and less PIE's
- Sony D11 could use some improvement, most of my other burners produce less than half the PIE rate on this media, which is finally now supported at certified speed
- Verbatim 32x CD-RW burn with terrible C1 rates > 250 and sky-high jitter near 20%
- CMC high speed CD-RW discs burn with very high C1 rates and jitter as well

Another PX-716A 1.08 problem found:
- Optodisc 16x DVD-R media (OPTODISC R016) is only supported at 12x and burns with POF's and a huge mess of errors and jitter above the 3.7G mark. The same media burns without issues on my 4163B, DVR-109, and DW1620 with PIE rates between 3.46-11.57, PIF rates between 0.10-0.14, and jitter in the 9-10% range when burned between 12-16x.

It would be nice if plextor released a trial download version of Plextools XL 3.05. They've added video features, but there's no way i'm going to buy it if i cant try it out first... Why is 3.02 the currently available trial version?

i agree with that sentiment about a trial version of XL 3.05...

see my anti-plextor rant in this thread...yes my anti-plextor rant

http://forums.divx.com/groupee/forum...02/m/993101052
and here
http://forums.divx.com/groupee/forum...02/m/463108952

they're really a bunch of idiots over there...

Again, Daxon AZ2 problems with firmware 1.09...PIF rates are nearly double that of 1.08 although PIE rates have improved from > 100 (still nasty) and jitter is a full 1% lower. Quality score is worse, and their WOPC algorithm is looking pretty dodgy with fluctuating quality and compensation attempts in each WOPC zone until it unloads a PIF bomb > 4G and PR kicks it down to 4x. My DW1620 burns these at 16x with 1/3 the PIE rate and less jitter. Of my 19 different test discs of different burners and firmwares the only worse results are on a 812S US0Q and surprisingly a 4120B A117. My DVR-109, ND-3500A, and even the TS-H552U burn with qscores in the 94-97 range on this media even when oversped (3500A & DW1620).

Offer an expedited advance RMA like the hard drive guys do. If I'm willing to put a deposit down on the drive and pay for fast shipping I should be able to have a replacement drive sent out the day I get an RMA. By the time I get my PX-716A back from plextor I'll have already bought another drive and at this point I see no reason for it to be a Plextor.

I paid over twice the price of competing drives and now I really don't know why. I've always loved my plextors and gladly paid the premium, but where has the quality/service gone?

please enable more features on the PX-740A like overspeed and quality scan so people are less inclined to cross flash to the BENQ 1640.

1. 1-pass scan for both PIE and PIF and maybe Jitter in PX-760A
2. Nero CD-DVD Speed support for PX-760A
3. Make PlexTools Professional handle scanning multi-session discs
4. Fix PlexTools Professional bug to show Media ID for DVD+R with DVD-ROM booktype

Please add an advance RMA option for your customers. It would be nice for them to receive their replacements more quickly.

Plextor has a well-earned reputation for innovation. Now it also has a reputation for selling overpriced, fragile, sub-performing DVD writers. Please put some of your earnings towards creating mechanically sound and reliable products again.

please enable gigarec 1,1x on PX716A

Gigarec 1,1 would be great!

add more supported media
fix something
i feeling to throw away the f***** drive

one good thing from 1.09 is that i stopped having to reconnect my tdk drive to burn cds

hope the same can be said with 1.1 with dvds

Got my Plextor 16x rated TY-T03 today. Also Sony D21-16x.
All I want is a new Firmware (1.10?) with an excellent writing strategy for
this excellent Media.

Improved writing quality for Plextor 16x DVD+R (YUDEN000 T03) media in the Plextor PX-712A drive.

I would have liked 16 reading speed for +/- R very much. Too bad that even 755/760 hasn't it.

I don't think they are here reading this thread. They put MID of the disc on PI/PO test screen in the new PlexTools 2.28 but still haven't got it right for DVD+R disc with DVD-ROM booktype!

Suggestion to Plextor: Remove that text or make it removable for users. Mine is better.

Concerning the future of the 760:

Currently the only difference between the 755 and the 760 is 18x writing. Thus IMHO it would not make sense to continue the 755 once the 760 get's introduced. However I think offering both drives in the future could make sense since a wider choice price wise might be an attractive idea.

Also the 760 seems lacking for a premium drive. I'd like to see the following things implemented additionally in the 760 :

- DVD-RAM: Since the Sanyo chipset used seems to support this, please make use of it.
- 8MB Buffer: Since a future Premium2 (with 8MB buffer!) seems imminent, one hast to ask why this is not offered in the top of the line DVD-drive.
- 8x -R DL: Even the very low end 750 does offer this. This could be done by FW-Update as it was done with FW 1.04/05 for the 716 once media are available.
- 32x CD-RW: I'm not a big fan of US-RW, especially in it's 32x variant, but then the Premium could do 32x RW properly and we still lack a replacement for this in the DVD world. Again, AFAIK the hardware should support this.

If this update to the 760 happens it would make sense to keep the 755 and thus have a 750 (low end), 755 (mid range) and 760 (premium range) drive lineup.

Both of these media codes needs work on the PX-716A 1.09 for quality on the +R and speed on the -R 16x. I've attached a scan of the +R media in the LG suggestion thread showing that the AZ3 media burned fine on my DW1640 BSOB so so it's not the media. Both of these discs were set to burn at 16x and neither burned at that rate or even attempted to hit that zone beyond 12x.

The new Plextor drives come with a DVD ripping speed of 2x, because of copyprotection.
That confused me, because I started to store all my homevideos (wich I converted to DVD in 100s of hours) on HDD and compress them to smaller files.

so I have to put my old DVD-ROM into an external case

- We want the full DVD read speed for ripping DVD!

Not true. Plextor drives come with a DVD playback speed of 2x in order to be as silent as possible when watching a movie. It has nothing whatsoever to do with copy protection.

The ripping speed can be increased by enabling SpeedRead and/or changing the DVD Read Speed setting in PlexTools, or by pressing the drive eject button for at least three seconds before loading the disc.

The PX-755 totally ignores the SpeedRead (at least mine did last time I tried) setting when DVD-Video CSS media is mounted. I didn't try the eject button method though

You have my full support manz!!! The old plextor drives which made in Japan can last 5 to 10 years (haven't 10 years, but over 5 years still working good expect slow in speed). But my new 716A which made in china only last 4 month before my first RMA, wtf, where is the king of quality gone to?