What's the Official Word on Plextor 40x Burners?

TeeCee wrote on 5/17/2002, 8:08 PM
So, what is it? Is this mainly a user helping user forum or is this tech support as well? 16x isn't necessarily slow, but it ain't right when the drive is rated at 24x audio and 40x data. I searched the forum and the FAQs for Plextor and came up with nothing good, so here's a new topic just for the occasion.

TeeCee

Comments

MarkWWW wrote on 5/18/2002, 7:54 AM
Some confusion here I think.

If you are referring to the Plextor 24/10/40A then the 24x refers to burning CD-Rs, the 10x refers to burning CD-R/Ws and the 40x refers to reading CDs - not 24x audio and 40x data as you have stated.

But having said that, I don't know why you are only being allowed to choose 16x speed writing (if that is what you are saying). I only have the older Plextor 8/2/20 drive, but that does allow me to select 8x burning correctly.

Mark
Rahl wrote on 5/18/2002, 8:39 AM
I just bought a PlexWriter 40/12/40A about a month ago. So far it works great with Sonic Foundry Products. Also I am able to burn at 40x, and with burn proof, I believe I am always insured that I will get a good copy. Every CD that I have burned at this point works well. So if you are on the market for a CD-burner, then the PlexWriter 40/12/40a is the way to go. I have yet to have any problems on my computer using SF products.
-André Barriault
drbam wrote on 5/18/2002, 8:48 AM
>>I just bought a PlexWriter 40/12/40A about a month ago.<<

Rahl, what's your system setup (OS, mobo, etc)? Thanks!

drbam
Rahl wrote on 5/18/2002, 11:21 AM
WinXp Pro
720 megs of ram
GeForce 2 Mx400
30 gigs hard drive
SoundBlaster Audigy
Zip 100

Anyway, it works fine I burned a VCD the other day and it took me about 2 minutes with the Plexwriter. What type of problems are you people getting? Sounds akward that I don't get errors, and you guys do... Anyhow!
-André Barriault
TeeCee wrote on 5/20/2002, 6:11 PM
I am refering to my 40/12/40 burner. Vegas Video 3 only gives me 12x (sorry - not 16x) as the fastest burning speed available. If I choose MAX burning speed, VV3 burns at 8x.

Rahl:
What Vegas Version are you using and what burn speed are you selecting?

TeeCee
kryten wrote on 5/20/2002, 11:33 PM
I don't know what what might be causing the problem other than the ATIP on the blank media. I'm not sure how SF products handle this, but with Roxio software, it reads the ATIP and determines what speeds are acceptable for the inserted media. I have some audio blanks that are supposedly rated at 16x, but Easy CD Creator will only allow 12x. If I hit cancel and replace the media with something else, it allows up to 32x when attempting to burn the same project. I suspect that something similar is happening to you.
TeeCee wrote on 5/21/2002, 7:51 AM
Thanks, but my CDs are rated for 24x burning. And none of this is the official word from Sonic Foundry that I'm looking for. I have a support email in to SF. I'll post an update when they answer it. I thought this had been addressed. Peter Haller had hinted to that effect on the PC-DAW email list.

TeeCee
inspector wrote on 5/21/2002, 12:17 PM
Does it burn at max speeds with other burning software? Assuming that you have other software that will burn.

Steve
TeeCee wrote on 5/21/2002, 1:23 PM
Steve:
Certainly. Incredible burns with Plextor's software and Easy CD Creator.

TeeCee
inspector wrote on 5/24/2002, 2:34 PM
Any word from tech support?

Steve
TeeCee wrote on 5/28/2002, 12:10 PM
Sent my first request in on Monday, May 20 (or the weekend preceeding) and sent my second request in this morning. No answers yet.

TeeCee
RevF wrote on 5/29/2002, 5:21 PM
Hi TeeCee,
My experience to add to this if it helps people looking for a drive - I couldn't get a Plextor 24/10/40 to work at all. (Plextor blamed SoFo and SoFo blamed Plextor). I bought a Yamaha 24/10/40 to fix it as Yamaha stated on their web-site that it was 'compatible'. This will only burn at 6x speed with VV3 - but at least it works. On reporting this fault Yamaha said it was down to SoFo and not their concern...
TeeCee wrote on 5/30/2002, 11:33 PM
I got feedback from two SF employess. Two different responses. I did apply the firmware patch, no luck.

<Ted Hoch>
Hi Travis,


Thanks for writing. Sorry about the delayed reply. I had to check with
some of our engineers to find out if this is a known issue or not. When you
burn a CD with Vegas, we tell the drive what data to burn and what speed to
do it at, and then the drive takes over from there. How are you determining
that the disc is being burned at 8x? Do you have any other CD burners that
you could compare with? I also checked out the Plextor website, and I
noticed that they have a firmware update that was just posted a few days
ago. One of the specific issues that is addressed is an improvement in
performance at 40x speed. Download and install that firmware update from
this link:


http://www.plextor.com/english/support/downloads/firm_4012.html

</Ted Hoch>
<Nate Marx>
Travis,

Thanks for writing. The full potential of some new drives is not yet
supported using Vegas 3.0, simply due to the fact that support for their
various "buffer-underrun prevention" technologies must be added for each
brand of drive. Plextor, for instance, uses BurnProof technology. Without
this, it's highly unlikely that the machine could maintain the data transfer
rate to support a constant-rate, 40x burn. So Vegas shows you lower, more
feasible speeds. It's possible that support for BurnProof could make it into
a newer update of Vegas, but I cannot say for sure.


Hope this helps to answer your questions.


Nate
<natem@sonicfoundry.com>
Sonic Foundry Technical Support

</Nate Marx>

TeeCee