Reviewed by Harry Eaton

The Plextor PX-716A drive achieves fast 16X performance on select 8X DVD media and burns a 4.7 GB DVD in less than six minutes.

Available in both internal (ide and sata) and external (USB/1394) versions, as well as tray and slot loading mechanism. The internal drive can be mounted either horizontally or vertically.

Plextor’s latest drive supports dual layer DVD media allowing the user to burn up to four hours of high quality MPEG-2 video to a single 8.5 GB DVD disk in about 28 minutes.

The drive features an 8 MB buffer and buffer underrun proof technology to prevent buffer underrun errors and allow the user to multitask.

Retail package includes: PX-716A drive, E-IDE 80 pin cable, PlexTools Professional software, an extra black front face plate, 16 language manual, Easy Media Creator 7 from Roxio (requires 2000 or XP) and a trial version of Dantz Retrospect for easy data back-up. The retail drive comes with a one year warranty.

PlexTools Professional software includes the following features and information:
• 'General Information' lists the drive's hardware, including jumper settings.
• 'Drive Settings' controls the drive's adjustable settings, like: read speed, spindle motor spin-down time, etc.
• 'Drive Information' shows the capabilities of the drive.
• 'CD/DVD Info' reveals extensive information about the inserted disc, like: format, sessions and tracks, manufacturer, CD TEXT, etc.
• 'Multimedia Player' uses the installed MCI devices for playback of MIDI, Audio and Video files.
• 'Audio CD Player' uses the installed MCI devices for playback of Audio CD's.
• 'Digital Audio Extraction' delivers high-precision WAV, MP3, OGG and APE files from audio tracks, with extra features like a choice of Smart Advanced DAE Error Recovery Strategies, freedb support, and CD TEXT editing as well as ID3-tag editing when MP3 encoding.
• 'Audio CD Maker' creates personalized Audio CD's from WAV, MP3, OGG and APE files, with editable CD TEXT or ID3-tag and freedb support.
• 'CD/DVD-ROM Maker' gives the opportunity to create standard CD-ROM's and DVD-ROM's by a simple Drag Drop Burn action. This handy function can be used for storage or backup of files and folders, as well as an easy way to transport data between computers.
• 'CD/DVD Copy' for accurate CD and DVD duplicating with the capability to add CD TEXT or freedb information and even create or burn ISO images.
(Note: only discs without copy-protection can be copied.)
• 'CD/DVD RW Functions' erases CD-RW and DVD RW discs so data can again be written to them.
• 'CD/DVD Test' scans your disc for uncorrectable errors and identifies potential read errors.
• 'Read Transfer Rate Test' performs a sequential reading of all sectors on the disc while calculating the transfer rate at the same time.
• 'Write Transfer Rate Test' performs a sequential write test while calculating the transfer rate at the same time.
The following additional functions and features are currently only available for a small selection of Top-Class drives such as the PX-716 series:
• 'Drive Settings' page with GigaRec, SecuRec and Silent Mode.
• 'Q-Check C1/C2 Test' measures the quality of a written or pressed disc by counting the number of low level errors.
• 'Q-Check FE/TE Test' measures the mechanical characteristics of blank media.
• 'Q-Check Beta/Jitter Test' shows the write quality by checking the jitter rate and the beta value of written media.
• 'Q-Check PI/PO Test' measures the quality of a written or pressed disc by counting the number of raw data errors.
• 'Q-Check TA Test' measures the quality of the written DVD media by checking the pits and lands for compliance with the DVD specifications.

GigaRec technology ignores the maximum capacity that is present or encoded on a CDR disc and compresses or develops a writing strategy to be able to write up to 1GB of data on a 700MB CD-R disc.
Intelligent Recording is a new and unique feature found on the PX-716A that provides the highest quality writing at optimum speeds using media of varying quality.
'AutoStrategy' is a self-learning writing technology to optimize the writing quality on any type of media to give the best performance. “AUTOSTRATEGY” technology is the culmination of five years of research and development by Taiyo Yuden, a Japanese supplier of CD and DVD media.
'Intelligent Tilt' controls the laser in three dimensions, to ensure high quality writing and reading if the disc surface has imperfections
'PoweRec' (Plextor Optimized Writing Error Reduction Control) optimizes the laser power and writing speed for a particular disc. For more info: http://www.plextor.be/technicalservices/technology/PlextorPoweRec.pdf
• SecureRecording Technology offers password protection for your CD-R discs and the valuable data (use at your own risk)
• Silent Mode allows you to adjust the speed of the drives functions to make the drive even quieter than normal if necessary.
• Q-Check analyzes and reports a written discs quality.
• VariRec Technology "Variable Recording Function" that allows the user to adjust the laser power for the lowest jitter, resulting in better sound quality and increased playability and compatibility with existing CD players (home, auto, CD-ROM drives). Starting from a default laser power setting determined by the drive's evaluation of the media, applications that support VariRec allows the user to modify the laser power slightly up or down to produce the highest quality audio recording. VariRec writes CD-DA on CD-R media at 4X with either track or disc at once recording formats.
• When you are playing a DVD-Video disc that has CSS copy protection you can increase the playback speed by turning on the SpeedRead functionality.
• Supports Lossless Linking (DVD+R/RW)
• Zero Link (DVD-R/RW)
• Supports Background Formatting
• Access Time <100 ms for CD; 150 ms for DVD
• 8MB Buffer
• E-IDE (ATAPI) interface (internal)
• PC Compatibility:
o Pentium 4 1.4Ghz or higher
o 256MB Memory
o 10GB of free disk space
• Compatible with:
o Windows 98 SE, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP (Some software features require Windows 2000 or XP)
• MultiRead Compatible
• Supports SPDIF (Digital Audio Output)
• High Quality Digital Audio Extraction

The Plextor PX-716A drive has the ability to write to DVD+R double layer media at 6x. This is achieved by upgrading the drive to the latest firmware release currently 1.06. High speed writing support for DVD-R DL is said to be available sometime soon. Double layer discs in this particular format will be available in the near future.

Bundled software includes

Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 DVD edition.
Roxio’s DVD/CD-recording software lets users create movie DVDs, data DVDs, music CDs, photo slide shows synchronized with music, data CDs, and backup copies of personal discs.

Roxio PhotoSuite 7 for capturing, organizing, editing, and sharing digital photos.

Dantz Retrospect data backup software (30 Day Trial)

The drives extensive media compatibility, 8 MB buffer, 16x writing to select 8x media, superb documentation, one year warranty and excellent dual layer media support make this one of the best drives available on the market. The capability of 6x double layer writing, make this one of the fastest dual layer drives on the market as well. The drive is highly recommended.

MSRP $139.99 US

Plextor America
  48383 Freemont Blvd.
  Suite 120
  Freemont Ca, 94538

Phone 510 440 2000

Website: http://www.plextor.com