News about P4012A, M.Rainier and CAV

vbimport
#1

I've been e-mailing Plextor wanting to get some info on when they're gonna release a firmware that will enable M.Rainier plus whether a future firmware update might get the drive to work with CAV instead of CLV.

I got 2 replies, thought i should share it with you people (since all of us Plextor owners are somewhat concerned about both matters - at least i am)

1st Reply (M.Rainier related)

[i]"Dear sir,

The Mount Rainier function will be the new standard for easier use with
CD-RW, to be implemented in windows based operating systems.
Plextor will release a firmware upgrade for the units that are Mount Rainier
compatible, such as W4012TA/TU.
This will be done when the Mount Rainier standard becomes officially
released by Microsoft Corporation.

Best regards,

W.V.
Support Engineer"[/i]

2nd Reply (CAV related)

[i]Dear sir,

Unfortunately, I've no information about the future.

Kind regards

W.V.
Support Engineer[/i]

So from what i gather, they will release a firmware that renders the drive M.Rainier ready whenever this feature is supported by MS Windows.

As far as an "upgrade" to CAV is concerned, well at least they didn't deny the possibility of this happening in the future ..

#2

Thanks for the info!

I have the Plextor PX-W4012TU here and it indeed says ‘Mt. Rainier ready’. I wonder why they haven’t implemented it yet. InCD works pretty well with Mt. Rainier as I see it. If we have to wait for MS to implement it, we’ll probably have to wait quite a while…

#3

If we have to wait for MS to implement it, we’ll probably have to wait quite a while…

Well you’re probably right.

Plextor’s attitude though kind of bothers me. They don’t seem to be worried at all about the competition. I don’t see a reason why they shouldn’t have implemented M.Rainier by now - the fact that windows does not support it yet is irrelevent.

It is a fact that Plextor makes quality drives, that is why i always prefer their products. There’s no reason why they should stop doing so now, though. They must realise that consumers do really expect the best possible product from a company such as Plextor, and the fact still remains that their drives are falling a bit behind the competition (although they have the best quality). I really hope that the P4012A/TU will be using CAV with a future firmware update.

#4

The information you received, is also everything I could get out of them :wink: Indeed they don’t deny a CAV writer, but for as far as I know Plextor is currently focussing mainly on quality, so if they don’t find a CAV method that can guarantee the quality of the CD-R, they probably won’t care for the speed and drop the technology.

This is probably also the reason they wait with Mnt Rainier support. This technology was intentionally made to work with the OS, and it still doesn’t. As soon as it works flawlessy, Plextor will probably implent it. But these are just my thougts, no guarantee how Plextor forsees it’s future :wink:

#5

Originally posted by DoMiN8ToR
… so if they don’t find a CAV method that can guarantee the quality of the CD-R, they probably won’t care for the speed and drop the technology.
I don’t really get this. A lot of other burners use CAV by now - don’t they care about the cdr quality? I find it kind of hard to believe that lite-ons, yamaha’s etc produce low quality burns just by using CAV. Even if this is the case i would expect Plextor to come up with something better than just “drop” the technology.

I can understand the M.Rainier thing, it is kind of logical to wait for the OS to implement it. Don’t forget though that Windows aint the only OS around, besides there are applications like InCd that already work pretty well with it.

#6

Originally posted by Hemispasm
[B]I don’t really get this. A lot of other burners use CAV by now - don’t they care about the cdr quality? I find it kind of hard to believe that lite-ons, yamaha’s etc produce low quality burns just by using CAV. Even if this is the case i would expect Plextor to come up with something better than just “drop” the technology.

I can understand the M.Rainier thing, it is kind of logical to wait for the OS to implement it. Don’t forget though that Windows aint the only OS around, besides there are applications like InCd that already work pretty well with it. [/B]

For the CAV thing, read the
CDRInfo review (Features section).

Their explanation of the MRW thing is very lame IMO.
From the information I have MS will only support MRW in new OS versions so that can take a few years.
InCD works perfectly with MRW so OS support is really not needed.

#7

Quoted from cdrinfo (thanx goes to cdrfreak2)

“…CAV recording can never be better than CLV recording. The drive sets a certain write strategy depending on the disc type and the speed. For CLV, these are kept the same throughout the disc. For Z-CLV, they stay the same within a certain zone. But for CAV, the speed constantly changes. So in theory you need millions of write strategies. It’s as if you have thousands tiny Z-CLV zones. So you have to compromise, probably on quality and accuracy…”
This is Plextor’s explanation about the reason they chose CLV instead of CAV for the P4012A drive… (thought it would be better to have it also posted in this thread)

This, however, doesn’t rule out the possibility of CAV being used in the future