Plextor PX-716UF - DVDRW (dual layer) drive - Hi-Speed USB/IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ( PX-716UF/SW )

by Plextor

Product Details

• Item Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 5.5 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00068S5A8
• Item model number: PX-716UF/SW
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 13, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The PX-716UF DVD+/-R/RW external IEEE 1394 and Hi-Speed USB 2.0 drive from Plextor offers all the advantages of our legendary CD-RW drives. Along with double layer and dual-format capabilities, the PX-716UF is also supported by Intelligent Recording technology to enhance your recording activities. The drive achieves blazing fast 16x CAV performance on recommended 8x DVD+R media, and burns a 4.7 GB DVD in less than 6 minutes, the drive also supports dual-layer DVD media, enabling users to burn up to 4 hours of high-quality audio and video.

Benefits:

• Double layer allows you to store up to 4 hours of high-quality MPEG-2/DVD video on a 8.5 GB disc
• Intelligent Recording Technology supported for recording at high-quality and optimum speed
• AUTOSTRATEGY Writing technology for unknown media with uneven quality
• Intelligent Tilt Precise laser control via liquid crystal and three-dimensional tilt adjustment for uneven disc surfaces
• PoweRec technology is a sophisticated write strategy providing superior quality recording at maximum speed for your chosen media
• Buffer Underrun Proof Technology prevents buffer underrun errors
• Buffer Memory - 8MB
• Achieves 16x write performance with recommended 8x DVD+/-R media
• Support DVD+RW background format
• Support DVD±VR format for direct disc recording
• Horizontal or vertical mounting orientation
• OS Support - Windows 98SE/Me/2000/XP
• Mac OS 9.1 or above
• One-year full warranty (parts and labor)

Plextor Software Bundle

For Windows:

• Plextools Professional software allows you to control powerful functions with an easy-to-use interface and includes Plextor premium features for SilentMode, GigaRec, VariRec, Q-Check and SecureRecording.
• Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 (support Windows 2000/XP only) is an award winning software suite which combines full-featured photo, video, music, burning, and authoring applications for the PC.
• Dantz Retrospect (30-day trial version) helps you back up important data against loss due to viruses, newly installed software, user error and damaged hardware.

For Macintosh:

• Roxio Toast 6 Lite (support DVD video authoring and requires Mac OS 10.2 or above) is an easy-to-use DVD and Cd burning software that enables you to create, organize, share music, video, photos and data on CDs and DVDs.

What's in the Box
DVD drive, a user's manual, a quick-start guide, software CDs, 1 DVD+R blank media, an AC power adapter and cable, FireWire and USB cables, and warranty information.

Product Description

The PX-716UF DVD+-R & RW external IEEE 1394 and Hi-Speed USB drive from Plextor offers many advantages with double layer and dual format capabilities. The PX-716UF is also supported by Intelligent Recording technology to enhance recording activities. The drive achives fast 16X CAV performance on recommended 8X DVD+R media, and burns a 4.7GB DVD in less than six minutes, the drive also supports dual-layer DVD media, enabling users to burn up to four hours of high-quality. Roxio Toast 6 Lite is an easy-to-use DVD and Cd burning software to create, organize, share music, video, photos and data on CDs and DVDs. Features - Double layer to record up to 4 hours of high-quality MPEG-2/DVD video on a 8.5 GB disc Intelligent Recording Technology supported for recording at high-quality and optimum speed Autostrategy Writing technology for unknown media with uneven quality Intelligent Tilt Precise laser control via liquid crystal and three-dimensional tilt adjustment for uneven disc surfaces PoweRec technology is a sophisticated write strategy providing superior quality recording at maximum speed Buffer Underrun Proof Technology prevents buffer underrun errors 8MB Buffer Memory Achieves 16x write performance with recommended 8x DVD+-R media Support DVD+RW background format Support DVD+-VR format for direct disc recording Horizontal or vertical mounting orientation Minimum Systems Requirements - Pentium 4 1.4GHZ, 800 MB-1 GB free space for copying CD to CD image, 10 GB free space for DVD authoring, RAM 256 MB, Monitor Display Resoution 1024 X 768 at 16-bit color, OS Support Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, XP, Mac OS 9.1 or above, Dual IEEE 1394 & Hi-Speed USB Interface.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular drive, BUT......., July 24, 2005

By 

Tony Jaeger (Seattle, Washington USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Plextor PX-716UF - DVDRW (dual layer) drive - Hi-Speed USB/IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ( PX-716UF/SW ) (Personal Computers)

I've been using this drive for about three months and I love it to pieces. I run it all day, every day, and it has never had the slightest hiccup. I've used it with +R, -R, and DL media and have never burnt a coaster; not once. The firmware upgrade gives me 6x write speed on 4x DL media with no discernable loss of quality.

I connect via Firewire and get blazing data transfer speeds. I use it with Norton Ghost with no problems for perfect Ghost Image system backups; I use Nero for just about everything else.

HERE IS THE REASON WHY IT WORKS FOR ME: I've been aware of Roxio for close to ten years now, and have tried their software products on several occasions. I must hand it to Roxio for their consistency.....for ten years or more, they have produced among the worst, most bloated, most obtuse and most buggy software I have ever encountered. In ten years they appear to have learned absolutely nothing, as evidenced by the poor souls who have posted negative reviews and comments here after installing Roxio's inherently flawed software. I find it utterly incomprehensible that Plextor has chosen to partner with Roxio, as it is much like Mercedes partnering with Yugo. WHY?

Plextor, do you have a death wish? Do you find marketplace success somehow unappealing and prefer humiliation and failure? Why do you do this to your customers?

Similarly, I've been aware of Memorex for well over thirty years and have been similarly impressed with them. If you want your audio tape to jam in your machine, to instantly foul your tape heads, to break or to produce lousy sound, choose Memorex audio tape. For this reason, I've never even tried their computer media as I have had such consistently bad experiences with their audio and video tape products.

My heart goes out to the folks who have posted negative reviews and comments here, as I would be doing the exact same thing if I had installed all of the software that Plextor supplies and had used bad recording media. I can think of no surer route to a messed up computer than by installing Roxio software and using Memorex media (Verbatim has always worked well for me, as has Maxell and Sony).

I did install the included Plextools software, and find it to be stable and problem-free, but I haven't had the need to use it much, as Nero satisfies most of my disc-burning software needs with stability, user-friendliness and efficiency.

The great disadvantage here is that if you don't already have the Nero software on your machine, the price of this drive has just increased by eighty dollars if you decide to buy the current incarnation of Nero's Ultra Edition. Try the included Plextools software first if you don't already have Nero, it may do the trick for you.

Nero may not be the only solution; other burning packages may work well also, but above all DON'T INSTALL THE INCLUDED ROXIO SOFTWARE.

I urge potential buyers to read through the previous reviews, as I agree on most points that those users bring forth.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars as the tiger would say it's GRRRREAT, February 7, 2005

By 

tech_mee - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plextor PX-716UF - DVDRW (dual layer) drive - Hi-Speed USB/IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ( PX-716UF/SW ) (Personal Computers)

I buy a plextor about every other model. This one is a GRRRREAT replacement for my Toshiba laptop el-crapo-burner.

The great ease and power of plextor in a nice portable format. Use it on your laptop, take it with you to back up other computers. Plays well with Ghost.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DVD9 and DVD5. Does Both. Plextor Styleeeee! HOOOT!, October 12, 2005

By 

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

This review is from: Plextor PX-716UF - DVDRW (dual layer) drive - Hi-Speed USB/IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ( PX-716UF/SW ) (Personal Computers)

If we wanted to have perfect DVD copies of movies then the Sony DRX-700UL Double Layer FireWire/USB 2.0 External DVD±RW Drive was the only real dual-layer until now. That Sony drive allowed 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 and the PX-716 does just that. Check out 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). So DVD5 or DVD9. Both options are here.

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 DVD9 burner out there.

- Not very noisy.

- Nice software bundle.

Cons:

- Price.

- Bit big.