Plextor really worth the money

Quema34 2005-06-02 14:52:07 UTC #30

drpino:

im happy with all of mine and none have let me down at all (PX-708UF, two PX-716As, PX-Premium and PX-M402U Video Converter)... if you are happy with yours (Plextor OR NOT), then i'm happy for you. why do people always have to argue about this and why can't people be happy for others regardless of whether they choose Plextor or not? i also really dislike those who make broad-sweeping generalizations about a particular brand of burner having never used one extensively.

it's been said many times (both in this thread and others) that Plextors have certain features/quality that make them worth the price for some people...for others that may not be the case. there is no definitive answer to the question posed in this thread and if one claims that there is, i wouldn't believe anything he/she/they ever said.

i am, however, disappointed by some aspects of Plextor - the quality of their customer service IN THE USA, the shitty attitude they have towards 3rd-party developed software that utilizes some of the features (namely CD/DVD Speed and PxScan/PxLinux) and the seeming lack of communication with some of their most loyal customers.

every single brand of drive has its pros and cons (price included) and THAT is a FACT.

Must heartily agree with Dr. Pino. I have a Plextor 716a, and have not had a single problem with it (about 40-50 burns now). I also have a Pioneer DVR-108 that always comes out far better on TA Quality tests than my Plextor burns. However, I cannot 'speedread' with it (it averages 3.5x), whereas I can with my Plextor (but I only speedread at a max of 8x [as I have not tested if I'll get more errors on PIE/PIF scans reading it at 12x--although I've seen no additional errors reading at 8x max], so it averages 5.5-5.7x)

We can get lost in these discussions with which is better. It doesn't seem to me from the tests I've seen at www.dvd-recordable.org on Pioneer DVR-108, 109, or NEC 3500 that someone could not go wrong with those drives. Although I've seen a lot of weird things on testing others have reported with Lite-Ons, they work great for some; many love BenQs and LG4163Bs, although I've read some only use BenQ (1620) for quality testing and how some BenQs will produce "wildly different burns" depending on the media used. The only consensus seems to be that LiteOn, Memorex, TEAC and other "low-end" burners could cause more headaches than great 'burner stories.' Bottom line: it seems the Pioneer DVR108/109, NEC 3500/3520A, LG4163 get largely positive reviews, with Plextor 712/716 also getting them (where those users have all good experiences with them). The only certainty seems to be that no one's 'reputation' has a 'lock' on quality and that the only way to perhaps reduce bad experiences with purchases is to purchase from a retailer with a good reputation to start with (e.g., newegg.com). Otherwise, it's hard to say what one might get these days when one buys, as in general it seems you can only trust some retailers and products as 'far as you can throw them.'

elec999 2005-06-14 11:35:50 UTC #31

My first burner was a Plextor 8x4x32, used it like crazy and still love it. Only problem its slow. I got my first dvd burner Pioneer 107, I dont really like the drive. May it be my luck getting a bad drive, I baught it at a computer show. The burner does really bad burns at 8x, even with the latest firmware, and 16x media, 8x media and all kinds. At 4x it burns allright, but give me a hard time when reading the media in another dvd burner/reader. I cant say I am a professional. But I can tell the difference in playback, and copy to hard drive, when burning with my Pioneer 107 vs my friends Lg drive. Also I am seeing the Plextors drives are no longer made in Japan, I am not starting another fight here, but does the "made in Japan" make a difference in quality, or its even fake sometimes. All I really want is a burner that can burn my dvds really smoothly and with very few errors. I am trying to buy high quality media, I know I cant blame the burner when I get bad burns on certain media. But my current Pioneer seems to give me bad results on all the different medias I have tested.
And I am starting to feel, myself this is a fight like, intel vs amd, nvidia vs ati. Sorry to starting it. Could it also be luck, can I get a Pioneer drive thats bad, and another person get a drive that works like magic.
Thanks

harley2ride 2005-06-14 12:52:40 UTC #32

elec999:

My first burner was a Plextor 8x4x32, used it like crazy and still love it. Only problem its slow. I got my first dvd burner Pioneer 107, I dont really like the drive. May it be my luck getting a bad drive, I baught it at a computer show. The burner does really bad burns at 8x, even with the latest firmware, and 16x media, 8x media and all kinds. At 4x it burns allright, but give me a hard time when reading the media in another dvd burner/reader. I cant say I am a professional. But I can tell the difference in playback, and copy to hard drive, when burning with my Pioneer 107 vs my friends Lg drive. Also I am seeing the Plextors drives are no longer made in Japan, I am not starting another fight here, but does the "made in Japan" make a difference in quality, or its even fake sometimes. All I really want is a burner that can burn my dvds really smoothly and with very few errors. I am trying to buy high quality media, I know I cant blame the burner when I get bad burns on certain media. But my current Pioneer seems to give me bad results on all the different medias I have tested.
And I am starting to feel, myself this is a fight like, intel vs amd, nvidia vs ati. Sorry to starting it. Could it also be luck, can I get a Pioneer drive thats bad, and another person get a drive that works like magic.
Thanks

My Pioneer A07Xl with Gradius firmware is a burning machine. Seems to work good with all kinds of media.

Kenshin 2005-06-14 13:07:05 UTC #33

It's not one of those "AMD vs. Intel" and "ATI vs. NVidia" fights. There is no company in the ODD industry that has over 50% market share. LG has had the top seat from the late 1990s but LG's share never hit even close to 50%. Taiwan as a whole has about 30% sometimes hitting nearly 50%. South Korea sometimes has over 50% but Samsung and LG never work together. The various Japanese companies never agree on a single standard and they fiercely compete among themselves.

And Plextor is the ONLY company that designs and makes ODDs of very high quality and very high price. (By quality I mean more about their orientation and marketing efforts than their hardware quality.) Plextor doesn't compete against LG or Samsung or BenQ. The larger companies also don't regard Plextor as a competitor because Plextor just has no capability to produce like 200 million drives in each year at an average cost of US$10 per unit. It was different some years ago when the entire ODD market was much smaller and profitability was much higher and there were Yamaha, Ricoh, Teac, JVC, Sony, and many other Japanese companies making CD and DVD drives. By now, most DVD devices for both PC and standalone consumer electronics market are made in China.

cvs 2005-06-14 13:30:44 UTC #34

I wouldn't bank on that 'yet' if I were you!

Just look what happened with the PX712 'support' after PX716 got out! No new firmware update for 5 months and a half ... then they finally release FW1.06 which was more like a PR excercise, since it hasn't added any DVD media support ... and then fw1.07 which FINALLY added some newer DVD media support.

Conclusion: Only two firmware updates since the end of August 2004! That was 9 and a half months ago! So, it took an average of almost 5 months for pLEXTOR to release a FW update for PX712!!! :eek: and this, while the drive is still less than a year old!!! :eek: . Of course, I was kind enough to even consider FW1.06 as being a REAL update!

Now, I would not call that support at all! It is a disgrace!

NEC which is known for its poor support, did better than this ... and I haven't paid a premium for it either! How does this fit with the fact that you have to pay a significant premium for a pLEXTOR?

@ Quema34

You are far too forgiving! You were fortunate that your drive worked as it supposed to ... for many other people it didn't!

I fully agree that all drives from all manufacturers have problems, however pLEXTOR drives seem to have more problems than any other major drive featured in the CD/DVD Burner section, and unfortunately this is a fact.

I don't want to play the number game again, since this is useless, but I will bring only one argument in favour of my statement ... this (pLEXTOR section) is the only place in the CD/DVD Burner section of CDFreaks which features questions like: "How many Plextor PX-716's does it take to get a good one?" ...

I'm yet to see a mention of several people having to RMA their NEC, BenQ, LG, LiteOn or Pioneer, two or more times in order to finally get a working unit! And this is in spite of the fact that some of these other manufacturers have a larger market share, e.g. more drives sold and more people using them. This should say something about our kING's monumental Quality Assurance failures ... and yet pLEXTOR sells the most expensive drives!

Let's not even mention PX740 ... a half featured BenQ rebadge, and almost twice more expensive than the real thing (BenQ 1640 that is) ...

pLEXTOR really worth the money??? Now, please don't make me laugh :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile:

Two_Degrees 2005-06-14 14:00:21 UTC #35

You haven't? Check the BenQ forum. I've heard of enough QC issues with the DW1620, specifically batches purchased from Newegg.

drpino 2005-06-14 17:44:30 UTC #36

this discussion/topic/argument/question is so tired and old....

hwp 2005-06-14 23:55:21 UTC #37

Indeed. Yet it will continue as long as disgruntled people who are unable to get over with it continue to make fools of themselves while spreading FUD to everyone elses harm. I guess we'll have to live with it.

alexnoe 2005-06-15 01:50:03 UTC #38

Did Pioneer, LG or NEC ever threaten open source developers?

Liggy 2005-06-15 01:55:02 UTC #39

I didn't even hear about them threatening closed source developers

Shoebedobedoo 2005-06-15 04:01:37 UTC #40

I wish I would have waited for the BenQ 1640 dvd burner to hit the USA. Stupid me bought the Plexy PX-712SA and I paid way too much money!.I still can't do quality disc scans with latest Nero CD/DVD Speed 4.
(Nero Toolkit) :a :a :a :a :a :a :a :a :a :a :a :a :a :a :a :a :a
Anyone interested in a trade? Plexy PX-712 can read& write Mt. Rainer, rip DocLock and "most audio cd protections" (if not all) and make a 1:1 backup of Safedisc 4.0(The Sims 2 University). Heck, I'll settle for a BenQ 1620 even up. :iagree:

cvs 2005-06-15 04:22:55 UTC #41

Thank you so much! It is always a pleasure to read such polite and well argumented posts!

FUD = Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt; "the term FUD ... has become generalized to refer to any kind of disinformation used as a competitive weapon". (source:catb.org)

I don't know who's disinforming more here, those who say there's something wrong (well, just have an objective look around at this forum) or you who suggests that everything is just fine

Perhaps you should have a little more respect for those people who had (multiple) problems with their drives and weren't as lucky as you. Having to RMA your drive 3 or 4 times is FAR from normal, and way below any conceivable standard, especially when talking about pLEXTOR.

If sharing one's experience and criticising some notable failures which should never happen with a premium drive, makes me a "disgruntled" person "unable to get over with it" and who <edit>"continues to make a fool of hymself"</edit>, then so be it ... and thank you for your kind stamp! :sad:

I will conclude with the following quote from Wikipedia: "Ironically, accusations of use of FUD can sometimes themselves become a FUD tactic to discredit the opposing side. Who actually utilizes FUD is a question that leads to difficulties with distinguishing objective and subjective truth."

PS. Please note that I do not work for, nor have any interests whatsoever in any possible company competing with pLEXTOR.

elec999 2005-06-15 05:46:41 UTC #42

I am going to add another question. What happened to Yamaha making burners.
Thanks

eltranquil 2005-06-15 05:54:27 UTC #43

It's an old story... back to 2003.
Found this one googleing around...

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdext/is_200302/ai_n9515222

Regards,

drpino 2005-06-15 08:13:03 UTC #44

i don't necessarily agree with hwp's comment above (sorry mate) nor do i think Plextor is the supposed King of Quality/best-burner-in-town/correct-in-their-open-source-stance...but still think this topic is tiresome...

Quema34 2005-06-15 08:45:09 UTC #45

cvs:

@ Quema34

You are far too forgiving! You were fortunate that your drive worked as it supposed to ... for many other people it didn't!

I fully agree that all drives from all manufacturers have problems, however pLEXTOR drives seem to have more problems than any other major drive featured in the CD/DVD Burner section, and unfortunately this is a fact.

I don't want to play the number game again, since this is useless, but I will bring only one argument in favour of my statement ... this (pLEXTOR section) is the only place in the CD/DVD Burner section of CDFreaks which features questions like: "How many Plextor PX-716's does it take to get a good one?" ...

I'm yet to see a mention of several people having to RMA their NEC, BenQ, LG, LiteOn or Pioneer, two or more times in order to finally get a working unit! And this is in spite of the fact that some of these other manufacturers have a larger market share, e.g. more drives sold and more people using them. This should say something about our kING's monumental Quality Assurance failures ... and yet pLEXTOR sells the most expensive drives!

Let's not even mention PX740 ... a half featured BenQ rebadge, and almost twice more expensive than the real thing (BenQ 1640 that is) ...

pLEXTOR really worth the money??? Now, please don't make me laugh :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile:

CVS, the point of my post was that I know of few companies today that are beyond reproach, and I certainly did not make light of any who had awful RMA experiences with Plextor. I also stated that if someone bought a Pioneer, LG, NEC, that many get quality burns and are very happy with those drives--that only cost $50-60 US. No doubt had I been one that got a lousy 716, I would have done all I could besides RMA'ing it to get Plextor to completely solve the problem, as I would have been seriously p.o'ed for paying top dollar and getting bottom-feeding results; I certainly would have expected complete and total satisfaction. Had I not gotten it, I would have still done all I could to make sure others knew of that problem and never bought a Plextor again. If I had to do it over again, I probably would have bought an LG4163B or NEC3520A, as they are $50-58 and I could have easily saved that much and just gotten hacked fw to boost the speed and defeat their Riplock (especially an NEC, since it is now capable of 90% of the quality burn testing [just not jitter]--and that would have been good enough for me). I'm truly sorry you're among the ones that it was a nightmare for. If I had a magic wand, I'd replace people in any company that don't care and replace them with those who still realize their customer's satisfaction and business makes them or breaks them, so they would solve every problem to their satisfaction. Alas, I don't have that power... Either way, I agree with Dr.Pino to the fact that it is best to spend energies devoted to other things and other questions. Thank you for being a voice of reason, Dr.Pino. (thumbs up)

bjkg 2005-06-15 09:36:45 UTC #46

Hello Folks,

I was visiting CDRinfo and found this posting concerning Plextor and their decision to use BenQ drives. This might be old news to all you Plextor folks but I found the article interesting.

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=14021

My questions is why pay the extra money to buy a Plextor drive when you can purchase the same the BenQ drive for about 50 bucks cheaper.

Best Regards,
bjkg

Quema34 2005-06-15 09:45:05 UTC #47

Yes, BJKG, the article was under a thread called "We always knew..BenQ" I certainly would NOT purchase a Plextor knowing it was really a BenQ rebadge (BenQ manuf.)--I'd buy the BenQ instead, as I could use CD Speed to do full burn quality testing for no $. However, I'd only use it for a tester, as I've seen many say that after a certain fw, the BenQ 1620 actually slowed down burn speeds on certain media and the burn quality got worse. The only consistent thing I've seen about them is that they are better than average as burners for burning media at rated speed, but not much more. I personally would be debating on an LG4163B, waiting for its new release (4167), or a NEC3520A--if I had the extra $$$, that is. :sad:

Quema34 2005-06-15 09:49:03 UTC #48

Kenshin:

It's not one of those "AMD vs. Intel" and "ATI vs. NVidia" fights. There is no company in the ODD industry that has over 50% market share. LG has had the top seat from the late 1990s but LG's share never hit even close to 50%. Taiwan as a whole has about 30% sometimes hitting nearly 50%. South Korea sometimes has over 50% but Samsung and LG never work together. The various Japanese companies never agree on a single standard and they fiercely compete among themselves.

And Plextor is the ONLY company that designs and makes ODDs of very high quality and very high price. (By quality I mean more about their orientation and marketing efforts than their hardware quality.) Plextor doesn't compete against LG or Samsung or BenQ. The larger companies also don't regard Plextor as a competitor because Plextor just has no capability to produce like 200 million drives in each year at an average cost of US$10 per unit. It was different some years ago when the entire ODD market was much smaller and profitability was much higher and there were Yamaha, Ricoh, Teac, JVC, Sony, and many other Japanese companies making CD and DVD drives. By now, most DVD devices for both PC and standalone consumer electronics market are made in China.

Wow, Ken, thanks for such great info! I always thought the drives were made much more cheaply, but never knew a ballpark figure. I unfortunately never heard of LG before a few months ago, or I might have bought an LG4163B to start with.

cvs 2005-06-15 12:46:38 UTC #49

Tell me about it! I fully agree with you ... but what can I do, from time to time, someone has to refresh the memory of those who forget too easily Although quite tiresome, and with the risk of sounding like a broken record, it is my sacred duty to keep the force in ballance :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile:

Naaa, I'm actually doing it for the new users, who do not know the entire story as the regulars do, and who usually don't dig up very deep in old and forgotten threads either ... and of course they should know the entire story, so they can take a decision in full knowledge of ALL the facts.

Nobody is the holder of the absolute truth, and everyone is biased to a certain degree ... I just place some words of caution from time to time, especially when things tend to look a bit too rosy wrt the reality, the rest is up to the each individual to discover, create an opinion and finally make a decision ...