detail information

Of course, one of the most important things about any recorder is the way it writes media. So, let us first take a look at how the Plextor PX-716A writes DVDR, DVD+R DL and CD-R media. As we already mentioned on the previous page, the PX-716A supports 16x recording speeds for both DVD-R and DVD+R media, 4x recording speeds for DVD+R DL media and, last but not least, 48x recording speeds for CD-R media.

DVD±R:

To test the Plextor PX-716A's performance when writing DVDR media we used Nero CD-DVD Speed and its "Create Data Disc" function. Here are the results:

DVD-R

DVD+R

The first thing that will probably strike you is that the Plextor PX-716A didn't reach 16x recording speed in both graphs. We quickly learned that this is caused by the drive's PoweRec function kicking in, lowering the write speed. It seems that this quality control technology is a little too sensitive. We'll get back to the PoweRec technology later on this page of our review. Here is a Nero CD-DVD Speed graph of the same DVD+R disc we used in the test above, only this time with PoweRec disabled:

DVD+R, PoweRec disabled

As you can see this time the drive didn't have problems reaching its rated speed of 16x (although the drive does need an extra speed boost at the end of the write process to reach 16x). The full disc was written in 6 minutes and 16 seconds, not the fastest recording time we've seen (the Philips ED16DVDR for instance only needed 5 minutes and 52 seconds).

DVD+R DL:

There isn't much to tell about the Plextor PX-716A's DVD+R DL recording performance as the drive uses the CLV (Constant Linear Velocity) method to write the discs which means that is uses a fixed write speed throughout the entire recording process. As you can see from the screenshot 4x dual layer recording takes around 27 minutes to complete.

CD-R:

There also isn't much to tell about the Plextor PX-716A's CD-R recording performance as it performs pretty much the same as any other drive supporting 48x CD-R recording speeds.

Drive Features:

As we've seen on previous Plextor DVD recorders, the PX-716A supports a lot of technologies. We've discussed these technologies before but here is a brief overview of Plextor PX-716A's supported technologies. Let's start with a screenshot from Nero Burning ROM:

Nero reports us that the Plextor PX-716A has an 8MB buffer and that firmware 1.03 is installed, which was released during our review. We'll get back to this later when we do our media tests.

Buffer Underrun Protection:

Nero reports us that, as with almost all Plextor drives, the PX-716A drive supports the BURN-Proof (Buffer UnderRuN-Proof) technique. When the, in this case 8MB, buffer of the recorder falls beneath a certain level, it will stop recording as of a specific location on the CD. The recorder then continues attempting to receive data from the PC to refill the buffer. As soon as the buffer has been refilled, the recorder will start recording again.

BookType (Bitsetting):

Unlike the Plextor PX-708A and PX-712A drives, the Plextor PX-716A supports bitsetting out of the box for DVD+R and DVD+R DL media. In short, changing the booktype for DVD+R or DVD+R DL media increases the compatibility with standalone DVD players, because the discs are recognized as a DVD-ROM discs instead of DVD+R (recordable) discs after they've been written. For more info you can read this article.

PoweRec:

As with all new Plextor drives, the PX-716A supports the PoweRec technology to ensure a quality back-up. PoweRec (Plextor Optimised Writing Error Reduction Control) monitors the quality of the disc while burning and will adjust the speed if necessary. The drive's PoweRec feature can be disabled though to force the drive to write media at a selected speed instead of the speed the recorder would normally use when its quality checks (PoweRec) are enabled. For more information you can read this PDF-document on the Plextor Europe website.

VariRec:

The VariRec technology allows you to change the drive's laser power when writing discs. For instance, with VariRec enabled you should be able to improve the quality of audio recordings and make the recorded disc more compatible with picky CD-players like a car stereo. Since the Plextor Premium drive the VariRec function has been improved since it now allows 8x writing (previously limited to 4x) and allows you to select the dye type of your CD-R disc in order to select the best write strategy. VariRec can also be used to burn DVD media with. You can modify the laser power of the PX-716A in order to achieve higher compatibility and playability. When recording DVDs with VariRec the write speed will be limited to 2x or 4x. For more information you can read this PDF-document on the Plextor Europe website.

GigaRec:

GigaRec allows you to decrease or increase the capacity of a normal 80 minute (700MB) CD-R disc up to 113 minutes (or almost 1GB of data). By compressing the pits and lands that are written on the disc, it is possible to increase the capacity of the disc by 40%. At the rate of 1.4x, failure free playback can be achieved on most modern equipment.

The maximum capacity of a disc is dependant on the type of disc and the GigaRec rate. When activated the recording speed will be limited to 4x and 8x in DAO (Disc At Once) mode on CD-R media without BURN-Proof. Here is a small test when burning 101 minutes of audio to a standard 80 minute disc. For this small test we used GigaRec at setting 1.3x:

GigaRec disc created successfully

SecuRec:

SecuRec allows you to password protect a CD-R disc when recording in DAO mode. When SecuRec is activated, the data on the written disc can only be retrieved by supplying the password you entered when the disc was written. When you or someone else wants to access the recorded disc from a different drive or computer you can use the PlexTools software or the free SecuViewer software, and of course the original password.

Silent Mode:

The Silent Mode option in the PlexTools software allows you to change various settings of your PX-716A drive in order to get a noise-free or silent operation:

AutoStrategy:

AutoStrategy lets the Plextor drive use an optimised write strategy on unsupported media (read: media that is not stored in the drive's currently installed firmware). A separate database collects all strategies for media which are not yet supported in the firmware. AutoStrategy is only available for DVD+R and DVD-R media (4x and higher).

The AutoStrategy database contains the write strategies that were collected by the AutoStrategy function. These strategies are additional to the write strategies that are stored in the drive's firmware. A maximum of 31 write strategies can be held in the non-volatile memory of the drive. From the screenshot above you can see that entries can be de-activated and deleted. The database also keeps track of how often a certain media was written.

In the PlexTools software we have an additional AutoStrategy test button which can be used to test unsupported media.

To demonstrate how this technology works take a look at the following image. It has been compiled out of three separate PI/PO Sum8 scans. We wrote the three identical discs of a brand unsupported by the drive's currently installed firmware:

So, what are we looking at here. The first disc we wrote was obviously not good and in fact, the PI/PO test returned an error causing the test to abort. The second disc was an improvement. The PI/PO test completed but as you can see, the first area of the disc still has a rather high PIE error rate. Next, take a look at the blue line of disc 3. This time we have an excellent result! As we said: we wrote three identical discs (Arita brand, manufactured by Ricoh) from the same spindle.

For more information on how AutoStrategy works you can read this thread on our Plextor Forum: AUTOSTRATEGY - TY and Plextor Tech???.

Q-Check:

As we've seen with previous Plextor models, the Plextor PX-716A supports so-called Q-Check functions found in the PlexTools software. In short, Q-Check allows you to check the quality of both CD-R(W) and DVDR(W) media. We won't go into details here since we've discussed Q-Check before but we do have to mention a new Q-Check feature that is found on the PX-716A. This new feature is called Q-Check TA Test which is used to check the readability of written DVDR discs. If your recorded discs have problems being played in standalone DVD players you can use the TA Test to check if the readability of the disc is good or not.

More Features:

Together with the PlexTools software you can control several extra settings which are not directly related to the drive. These settings include for instance "SpeadRead CD/DVD" to unlock the drive's read speed, "Hide CD-R Media" to prevent applications from identifying an inserted disc as a CD-R disc (this is used by certain copy-protections) and much more.