detail information

As we already mentioned the Plextor drive supports 16x CD-recording and 4x DVD+R recording. On this page of our review we'll see what these speeds mean in terms of write time when recording 700MB of data (when using a CD-R disc) and 4.4GB of data (when writing a DVD+R disc). The Plextor's re-write performance will be tested on the next page:

Writing Data (CD-R):

For our data writing tests we simply set up a new compilation of 700MB using the Nero Burning Rom software. We used the DAO (Disc At Once) writing method. The disc was finalized and set-up as a non-multisession disc. In the screenshot below you can see the burn process completed successfully:

Since the Plextor PX-504A drive only supports three CD-recording speeds (4x, 8x and 16x) there isn't much to tell about the drive's performance. It achieves an acceptable write time when recording 700MB (5 minutes and 24 seconds). We didn't test the drive's performance when recording at lower speeds since most users will probably only use the drive at its maximum speed.

Writing Data (DVD+R):

The next thing we're going to test is the Plextor's DVD+R recording performance. As you can see from the screenshot below, 4x recording means a total write time of 14 minutes and 13 seconds:

So in less than 15 minutes you can write a complete DVD movie! Unfortunately 4x certified DVD+R media is very hard to come by at this moment so how does the drive perform when using 2.4x certified media? To test this we simply used some Philips 2.4x DVD+R media and started the write process. In the screenshot below you can see that the drive now needed a little over 23 minutes, about 9 minutes more than when recording at 4x:

Since this is our first review of a DVD-recorder we unfortunately cannot directly compare the drive's write times to other drives.. Let's continue with the PX-504A's CD-R write quality.

Write Quality:

Since the Plextor PX-504A supports recording speed of only 16x maximum, it doesn't need high-performance media to reach its maximum speed. Since the recording speeds are low this will probably mean that the write quality will be ok (since in general, a lower write speed means better quality). To test this we wrote several discs at maximum speed. For each disc we then used Lite-On's C1/C2 error scan program called WSES (Write Strategy Evaluation System) to measure the amount of errors.

In the graphs below you can see an overview of errors occurring during the read process. Please note that every burned disc will always have C1 errors. These are errors that are corrected by the drive and they will not effect the disc in a bad way as long as their amount is limited. C2 errors are however very bad for a disc and are harder to read and correct. When there are too many C2 errors present on the disc it means you have bad burned disc and it can't be read in the test drive you're using as a reader. Although a low amount of C2 errors can still be recovered by the drive, a zero amount of C2 errors is always preferred!

Plextor/Taiyo Yuden - 48x certified - 16x write

Mitsui/MAM-E - 48x certified - 16x write

Maxell - 48x certified - 16x write

From the created C1/C2 graphs you can see that all discs were written with excellent quality. There was a very low amount of C1 errors on every disc and the Plextor drive didn't create a single C2 error. As expected, all discs were written at the PX-504A's maximum write speed of 16x.

Read Tests

Re-Write Tests