Writing Quality: PX712A vs NEC3500 Comparison

why would you want to save them the second way? you cant see max and avg in that pic.. or poe for that matter :/

off topis [joke]

Be careful QQuxa, your stay in Plex Forum may be short and end abrupt... heh he.

/off topic

There's a way to show max/avg, by using the button "View Log" and copy/paste in your post, for example here.

The only difference between me and millions of other users is that I've got four bad drives, in spite of having two of them handpicked by Plextor. Clearly they are not able to supply to me a PX712A which works as advertised.
I've bought my drive four months ago and I could not use it with good results for most of this time. Moreover, due to the multiple faliure of Plextor to supply a unit which works as advertised, I have got 30+ coasters by now. Plextor sent me a total of 20 complimentary discs. I sent them 15 discs as media samples, and wasted good media on all those coasters. I have even beta tested (for free of course, and on my own media and time) two of Plextor's pre 1.05 FWs. As such I have wasted a lot of my time in doing Plextor's own work. I also spent a lot of money on various media searcing for one which actually works, and half of them do not write properly or at all on PX712A. Even the fourth unit doesn't work as it should, although it is clearly better than any other previous unit I've had. Now, unit no 4 does not work with media which unit no 3 worked wery well, showing once again how unreliable this drives are (at least the ones I've had).

Given all the above, in my case all four of my drives failed to work as they should have, and as such I was incapable of using my drives for almost four months in spite of paying for it like any other user.

I submit to anyone that I, like any other customer has the right to have a working product, and in my particular case (as opposed to millions of other users as you say) clearly I could not enjoy a good unit like you and hamp for example. Four faliures are enough for me. After two hand picked drives, I cannot be condemned that I do not trust Plextor in being capable of supplying a fifth PX712A which is better than my current drive. Also a customer should not be expected to pay for the mistakes of a manufacturer. If Plextor flopped a certain number of drives, that's their problem ... the only thing is that I paid for it dearly already.

So given all these things, meanwhile Plextor releases a new generation of drive, while my PX712A still doesn't work properly. Does it look normal to you that by the time they release a new generation of drive a customer still doesn't have a working old generation drive, and still has to struggle with a subpar unit???

Because I could not enjoy and after four months I still cannot enjoy what I've paid for, and I've lost a lot of money, media and time, I would expect Plextor to fix this major faliure in a decent way by supplying a new generation of drive and a letter of apology. I don't think my request is in any way exaggerated. If I would have known at the time of purchase that Plextor will fail four times in supplying a fully working unit, I would have bought a different and much cheaper drive, or if I really wanted a Plextor I would have waited for the new PX716A. Plextor's tech support, has been good and they have tried to fix this problem and be helpful ... however, even the best technical support cannot support an unsupportable drive, plagued by HW problems ... sometimes even the best intentions are not good enough, like in this case. They have grossely failed at my expense and they should pay for it not me.

I will not sell this unit at loss, and on top of that shift my problems to someone else. This is a very dishonest thing to do, and as such I will *not* do it. Furthermore, in that case both I and the new buyer will be at loss.

So let's wait and see. If this cannot be agreed in an amiable way with Plextor, there are other ways to convince them. There are enough consumer organisations around which can help. Furtheremore I have bought my unit with my credit card. Finally there are other legal ways in which one can have its justice. One thing is for sure, no more mister nice guy from now on! I have put up with more than possibly anyone else in these months, and someone should damn pay for it!!! And that someone won't be me!!!

Hamp wants it because he thinks that your drive no. 4 will perform fine in his comp.... that's what youre saying right Hamp?

I've only recently (a week ago) switched to the new way of presenting the results which is more descriptive and smaller in size (as the format I'm using now is png). I was dispaying the old results as I've saved them at the time, just to save me another 28 minutes required to rescan each disc. I only have a rather limited time and can't really afford to rescan all those discs again just because the format is a bit different. All scans are high accuracy and they are perfectly comparable. Of course the new ones have some additional info, which you can ignore when comparing them if you wish. So this mix is from purely practical reasons.

However if you wish, I can also post the average values which I've saved at the time as a txt file ... but I haven't tought that the average values are of too much interest to anyone ... the total PIE values and the graph itself should do the trick ...

I was young and foolish once and i haven't right clicked on the graph window

I can't give a damn about my drive, is just RMA material mostly

However I will defend my "bad" computer with my life Good God, that sounds like what Hamp said a while ago Just to see how much alike we are

@ cvs & zevia
Will you two please read this post

I DID APOLOGIZE ! ! ! !

i see i see, thanks for clearing it up so Plextor drives can report PIE, POE, POF, Beta, Jitter..? right?;p

well lets hope PX716A will be good;p

Indeed they can test all that. They also test FE/TE (focus errors and track errors).

The new PX716A also introduces a TA check (Time analysis? - don't ask me what exactly is that doing ).

Traxdata 4x DVD+R, RICOHJPNR01 Rev02

On PX712: Written @8x




On NEC3500: Written @8x



Well, this media (25pk spindle) is maybe not quite as high in quality as TDK (jewel cased) media, but both burners love it!
And at £9.49 delivered I won't complain for a second!

Memorex 8x DVD+R Printable, CMC MAG E01 Rev00, M8D+RP4725C.0404, Part no: 864119-25, 25pk spindle

On PX712: Written @8x




On NEC3500: Written @8x



The results speak for themselves ... just look at the total PIE ...

Look at the last four images cvs has posted of the Memorex and TraxData media.

Look at the POE values. Although the Traxdata/Ricoh media are seductively low on PIE (what I typically get on my 712A, too), the POE totals and averages are much *higher* than the worse-looking Memorex PIE graphs. Hmmm.

Could it be that the PIEs on the Memorex disks, though more numerous, are by their nature more-correctable? Ye Gods! Another can of worms!

First we obsessed over the Kprobe data, never mind that it is hardly reproducable. Now the Plextool scans seem more reliable, but are we looking at the wrong data? Should we be thinking that *anything* under, say, 50 or 100 on the graphs is bloody gorgeous?

And what about the "burst" spikes? Useless! What do we learn if the tech folks who have made it possible for us to see and obsess over them offer no clue as to how to interpret them?

I seem to have a perfectly ordinary 712A. I do occasionally use the Plextools scans to check out a new batch of purchased disks for gross misbehavior. And I have a stack of BeAll disks where every sixth one seems to give PIEs over 500, where the others are under 20. Go figure!

But the race for the perfect scan may be like the search for the Fountain of Youth, magic life-extension potions, or the Holy Grail. I am getting the sense that this Quest is getting to be an end in itself. We all know just enough to be dangerous!

P.S. I don't believe for an instant that cvs's computer has any bearing at all on error scans. The quality of a burn is mediated entirely by the hardware, electronics, and firmware within the drive. If the drive gets starved, it stops and complains, and the buffer-underrun magic comes into play. If the software makes an error, either it will crash or quit or give an error message, and the burn is aborted. Even if perchance the data is corrupted by the software/computer, the writer can burn an error-free copy of it and report that. Plextools can't know what the data *means.* It just tries to indicate whether it was well-written and read back. (My 712A is in an external FireWire/USB2 case, fan-cooled.)

You know, I wish my 712A could burn MCC 02RG20 even that well. Let me show you what mine did to this media at 8x:

Not entirely true; the PX-712A uses full CLV for 6x burning while the ND-3500A, like its older brother the 2500/2510A, uses 4x > 6x Z-CLV for 6x burns, which adds a bit to the time. 6x full CLV produces some nice burns.