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In this part of our Plextor PX-W4824TU review we'll start testing the reading and writing of copy-protected data discs. Copy-protections are used on almost every game nowadays so it's important a writer can handle the various protections out there. For the tests we used the latest CloneCD version 4.0.1.10 from Elaborate Bytes. As you might know if you've read our CloneCD v4.0 preview, CloneCD now uses Profiles for each type of disc. In this review we created a separate Profile for each protection with the common settings used in the old CloneCD versions. E.g. for SafeDisc we only selected the 'Fast Error Skip' setting.

As an extra 'service' or help you can download the Profiles we have used in this review. Click on the Profile images to download the used Profile. Store these files in your CloneCDProfiles folder on your hard disk. Alternatively you can view and download all used Profiles from our CloneCD forum, by clicking here.

Now let's start by giving you a screenshot of the supported drive capabilities of the Plextor PX-W4824TU drive with CloneCD v4.0.1.10:

As you can see in the picture above, the Plextor PX-W4824TU is fully supported by CloneCD (DAO-RAW96). To determine the copy-protection used on our game discs we scanned every disc with the latest ClonyXXL version 2.0.0.6. ClonyXXL can be obtained from kickme.to/englishclony. In the table below we've summed up all of our results and after the table we will clarify our results. Since the Plextor PX-W4824TU drive has about the same read times as the internal model we won't compare the read times to other recorders.

LaserLock:

For the LaserLock test we use a game called 'Desperados' protected with LaserLock 2. As a comparison we read from both the original disc and from a back-up (CD-Recordable) disc. We did this because there can be quite a difference in read time as you can also see from the results we got with the Plextor PX-W4824TU drive. While the original disc is read in 38 minutes, the back-up was read in 17 minutes. Not a bad result for LaserLock. The original disc was read faster than we saw with the internal Plextor drive while the back-up disc was read slower this time.

SafeDisc:

To test the SafeDisc protection we used a game called 'Beavis and Butthead: BungHole in One'. The SafeDisc protection is quite old but it uses a lot of errors on the first 5% of the disc which can make reading the disc take a really long time. The Plextor drives are however very fast when it comes to reading the error sectors and this PX-W4824TU drive is no exception. The disc is read at full speed in 2 minutes and 13 seconds. A new record time!

SafeDisc 2:

For our next tests we used a game called 'The Sims: House Party' protected with SafeDisc version 2.10.030. As expected the disc was again read at a record time of only 1 minute and 59 seconds. To test the Plextor PX-W4824TU's ability to write this protection we wrote the image with 'Amplify Weak Sectors' (AWS) disabled. The created back-up disc was then tested in the following drives:

As expected the SafeDisc 2 protection was no problem at all for the Plextor PX-W4824TU drive. The same result as we got with the internal Plextor PX-W4824A drive.

SafeDisc 2.51 and newer:

Besides our SafeDisc and SafeDisc 2 tests we need to take a look at the latest SafeDisc 2 versions. For these tests we used two games: 'Serious Sam 2: The Second Encounter' protected with SafeDisc v2.51.021 and 'Mafia: The City Of Lost Heaven' protected with SafeDisc v2.70.030.

We read both games with the Plextor PX-W4824TU drive using the same 'SafeDisc (2) [no AWS]' Profile as for our normal SafeDisc and SafeDisc 2 tests. The 'Hide CDR Media' option was enabled in the CloneCD tray to test playing from the CD-RW drives. The results when playing from the following drives:

As you can see from the list above the created back-up didn't play from all drives. As expected the back-up failed in the picky Toshiba DVD-ROM. Next we re-wrote the same image files but now with the 'AWS' option enabled using the 'SafeDisc 2(.51) [AWS]' Profile. The 'Hide CDR Media' option was again enabled in the CloneCD tray to test playing from the CD-RW drives. The results when playing from the following drives:

As expected the Plextor PX-W4824TU drive unfortunately still failed to create a fully working back-up even with 'AWS' enabled.

Update: With firmware 1.03 the 'AWS' problem has been fixed. More information on this thread on our Plextor forum!

SecuRom *NEW*:

The next protected data tests we did was with a game called 'Neverwinter Nights' protected with a newer version of SecuRom. Note that we didn't apply the official game patch for this title since with this patch no back-up works. We tried to read the third disc of the game (play disc) and the Plextor PX-W4824TU could read the disc in the exact same time as we needed for the internal Plextor drive. Unlike older Plextor recorders the latest Plextor 48X drives are not limited to about 8X reading anymore when it comes to reading the SubChannel Data.

PlayStation/LibCrypt:

And finally, as expected because of the results we got when reading the SecuRom protection, when reading a PlayStation disc the Plextor PX-W4824TU is also not limited to 8X reading. The complete disc was read in 3 minutes, only one second behind the previously reviewed internal Plextor drive.

Conclusion:

As expected the results we got with the external Plextor PX-W4824TU drive were about the same as we got with the internal version. SafeDisc reading has been improved a little with the latest version but unfortunately writing has not. The Plextor 48X drive still fails in creating a fully working back-up even with CloneCD's 'Amplify Weak Sectors' enabled. SecuRom reading and writing has remained exactly the same.

Next up in our Plextor PX-W4824TU review, the reading of protected audio discs...