Plextor EXTERNAL PX-708UF 4X/2X/12X ( PX-708UF/SW )

by Plextor

Product Details

Data Sheet [168kb PDF]

• Item Weight: 4.4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000DC69T
• Item model number: PX-708UF/SW
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 17, 2003

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The Plextor PX-708UF delivers the fastest performance in dual formats: 8X DVD+R write, 4X DVD-R write, 4X DVD+RW rewrite, 2X DVD-RW rewrite, and 12X DVD-ROM read. In addition to recording, rewriting and reading DVD discs in dual formats, the PX-708UF supports 40X CD-R write, 24X CD-RW rewrite and 40X CD-ROM read speeds. All in one drive. Create a 4.7 GB disc on DVD media in about 8 minutes.

You won't find a better DVD recordable drive to create, edit and share customized DVDs and CDs with friends and family using video, photo, audio and data. Capture, archive, organize and personalize your home movies and photos on DVD, VCD, mini DVD and SVCD. Create photo slide shows, complete with transitions and music. Burn your photos to Video CD to play on most DVD players. You can also back up and archive 4.7 GB on a single-sided recordable DVD disc or create photo albums for viewing with DVD players and much more.

Product Description

This multi-format external drive from Plextor lets you save and share your videos, photos, music and data! This PX-708UF drive is capable of burning DVD+R at 8x, 4x for DVD-R DVD+RW, and 2x for DVD-RW discs. This external drive features both USB 2.0 and FireWire connections, so you can instantly access DVDs and CDs. With Buffer Underrun Proof technology, this Plextor PX-708UF drive ensures fast, reliable writing every time. Plextor Power - buy yours now!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Kept Burning Secret, November 1, 2004

By 

OverTheMoon ([e-mail]) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plextor EXTERNAL PX-708UF 4X/2X/12X ( PX-708UF/SW ) (Personal Computers)

Wait. Do not buy this if you want to have perfect DVD copies of movies. If you want that then get the Sony DRX-700UL Double Layer FireWire/USB 2.0 External DVD±RW Drive. That drive allows you to perfectly copy what is called DVD9. DVD9 is what Hollywood uses to make those discs. In the burning world we have DVD-R + R media called DVD5. DVD 5 is around the half the size of a DVD9. This means that when you backup your movies to DVD-R, you need to compress with programs like DVDshrink in conjunction with Nero Burning Rom. Most films can be compressed or DVDs stripped to produce 80% to 100% quality viewing. However on some films they are so big and fast that sometimes the compression can be down as low as 60%. Now 60% compression with DVD Mpeg is not bad but 80% is quite acceptable and 99% of films work great on standard DVD-R. So burning with this hardware is no problem - quality movies is the end result, but if you want pure 100% quality, then be prepared to pay for it with Double Layer technology. Check out the price of the Sony and then check out the prices of the Double Layer DVD Discs. Haha - as you can see the Discs are the catch because they cost a bomb - but anyway you have a right to know that this technology exists and also that it is easier to use (Direct copy; no compression).

Nero Burning Rom comes bundled with this package nd is 99.9% effective but has a tendency to corrupt now again simply because it has a vast configuration system. Nero is a core burning tool. This means that several backup packages out there will actually find Nero on install and use it for burning. One example is DVDshrink that runs Nero in the background while backing up DVD movies on DVD-R. I/O errors with these programs, including DVD Decrypter, are usually the result of a configuration problem with Nero. One example is updating your Plextor firmware. Sometimes this requires you to reinstall Nero. This problem however is the only bug I have found with Nero. Just on the side - I highly recommend Imation, Memorex or Verbatim as relatively cheap good second class media (80% or higher burn success rate). DVD is still in its early days of development and some media is garbage so don't blame Nero or the Plextor if you make coasters (half burned DVD-R Discs that are useless to you) with this software. I also recommend a healthy supply of at least 3 DVD-RW Discs for TESTING your burning so that you NEVER make a coaster and waste money. Okay, now back to Nero. Nero is the most configurable burning tool out there while Nero Express is for those who do not know a thing about burning and works like a Wizard. A word of advice is to stick with the Rom and learn it without using the Wizard. You can choose from burning 12 CD formats and 6 DVD formats, including several variations of each format. There is not a Disc format you can not Burn with this program. The Plextor burners have great hardware based error correction systems and in conjunction with the Nero software make a perfect burn almost every time. Nero also happens to be extremely fast, if not the fastest out there, however fast is also in terms of how fast your burner is, but the software package requires little to no processing before a 8GB DVD is being pulled onto your HD. You can create ISOs with Nero and even use Nero to open up ISOs so you can read the content. There is an amazing amount of free software out there that uses this burner as their base and rightly so. It is the best burning software out there at this time of writing. Also the hardware comes bundled with Pinnacle Systems Media Studio 8 (a full DVD authoring program).

Now to the hardware itself. A USB2 connection at the back means top seed copying to and from the HD. There is a firewire connection if you want to use it and also audio out with volume control. What makes this DVD+-R X 8 (with RW and CD burning capability) speed burner so good is that it is light and yet built like a rock. You can take this anywhere with you although it is about 3/5th smaller than a PS2 so a nice little backpack is ideal for transport. Its error correcting is by far the best out there and I have burned maybe 800+ DVDs without any problems with it today except for bad media.

Pros:

- Take it anywhere.
- Best DVD5 burner out there.
- Not very noisy.
- Nice software bundle.

Cons:

- Price.
- Bit big.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent product for MAC and PC, August 9, 2004

By 

D. Christen "dan_chris" (Rushville, IN United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Plextor EXTERNAL PX-708UF 4X/2X/12X ( PX-708UF/SW ) (Personal Computers)

I use the 'Firewire/USB2' version of this DVD-RW and I am absolutely satisfied with the performance and the features of this writer. I use it on both, a Mac (under OS X with firewire) and PC (under Windows XP with USB2) and it works flawless. This is truely 'plug and play' - no installation software is necessary on either operating system. The writing speeds are excellent and I have not burned any 'coasters' so far. It supports all DVD and CD medias and the DVDs (DVD+R DVD+RW DVD-R and DVD-RW) play on all of my DVD players. The picture quality is excellent. The bundled software is very good as well, for Apple (Toast 6.0 lite) and for PC (Roxia software bundle). Also for PC, DVDMAX is included which is a pretty good DVD player (considering the price of this unit is less than 200 dollars, there are hardly any 'DVD player programs' available in the same price range).
This drive comes also with some excellent Plextor tools (e.g. overburning of CDs, error diagnostics, silent mode, and my favorite, drag and drop to disk which makes moving files to and from a DVD very easy). I have been shopping around for a DVD writer for quite a while and I can hightly recommend this unit, especially if you are looking for an external device that works on MAC and PC.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Plextor starting to skimp?, December 22, 2003

By 

Johan Lindh (Stockholm, Sweden) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plextor EXTERNAL PX-708UF 4X/2X/12X ( PX-708UF/SW ) (Personal Computers)

When getting a writer, be it CD or DVD, I always look to Plextor first. They are the leaders, and the rest follow. But when I received the 708UF, I was a bit disappointed. The unit comes equipped with a small fan that emits a high-pitched whine, even when the unit is idle. Since I'm using an external unit just so I can relocate my noisy computer to another room, this is a problem to me. If this won't bother you, stop reading here.

The reason for the fan must be that the unit needs cooling, of course. But why have it run all the time? It should have been real easy to limit it's operation to when the unit is working. Or, even better, get rid of the cheesy plastic box that's housing the 708A and USB logic and use an aluminium box instead. You'd have gotten better durability, looks and cooling in one go.

No, the unit may function very well, but that fan must go.