detail information

Now that we've taken a look at how well the PleXCombo drive can read data and audio it's time to see how well the drive can read DVD media. Since this is our first review of a combo drive we unfortunately have no base for comparison but we can check if the drive can reached the claimed 12x for DVD-reading. Let's start with a screenshot of PlexTools and the detected DVD read speeds:

As you can see from the screenshot above the PleXCombo can read DVD-ROM discs at 12x max. Please note that 12x DVD reading is not the same as 12x CD reading. 1x DVD-reading is 1350kb/s while 1x CD-reading is 150kb/s. From the PlexTools screenshot you can also see a remark that DVD-Video is limited to 2x reading to prevent noise and vibration.

DVD Read Tests - DVD-ROM:

For the transfer rate tests we used a pressed DVD-ROM movie ('The Jack Bull'). The disc used was a single layer DVD containing 4.16GB. We used Nero DVD Speed version 0.53 to perform the various tests. You can see the achieved results in the screenshots below:

And of course the screenshots of the speeds, seek times and CPU usage of the PleXCombo drive:

From the screenshots you can see the PleXCombo reached a top reading speed of 11.77x. When we had a larger capacity disc, 12x wouldn't have been a problem. The seek times of the drive were also quite good but we question if the 54ms for a full seek is accurate. This is a bit too fast...

Because this is our first review of a combo drive we cannot compare the drive to other combo's. In the table below an overview of the test results of the PleXCombo and Nero DVD Speed:

DVD Read Tests - DVD-Video:

We already mentioned that the PleXCombo drive is limited to 2x when playing DVD-Video and to test this we did a transfer rate test with Nero DVD Speed using a pressed (dual-layer) DVD-Video ('Gen-X Cops') containing 6.31GB. You can see the achieved results in the screenshots below:

And of course the screenshots of the speeds, seek times and CPU usage of the PleXCombo drive:

From the screenshots you can see the PleXCombo is indeed limited to 2x when reading DVD-Video. This will help reduce noise when viewing a DVD movie which only needs 1x. Of course this will be a disadvantage for people wanting to use the drive for ripping DVD discs.

The seek times of the drive were also quite good but not as fast as the seek times of the Toshiba SD-M1502 DVD-ROM (131ms/136ms/184ms). Because, like said before, this is our first review of a combo drive we cannot compare the drive to other combo's. In the table below an overview of the test results of the PleXCombo and Nero DVD Speed:

DVD Playback:

We played several DVD movies with the PleXCombo PX-320A drive which all played fine. The drive was indeed very quiet when reading the DVD discs because of its low read speed.

That concludes our read tests. Now let's see how well the PleXCombo drive can read (heavily) scratched discs.