Plextor PX-712UF/SW 12X DVD.R/RW ( PX-712UF/SW )

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding DVD RW
Review: Excellent purchase. I spent weeks trying to get Sony to ship me a replacement for a DOA DRX-530UL, all they would say is "Our warranty specifies you must return the DOA unit at your cost and we will fix it if required in 6 - 8 weeks". Took it back and exchanged it for the PLEXTOR PX-712UF, best thing I ever did. I wrote 4.5GB to a DVD+R in less than five minutes! I have used the drive more than twenty times in the last few days and I love it. Great design, great performance, simple to connect and use. I heartily recommend the PLEXTOR PX-712UF!

Rating:
Summary: The Best Kept Burning Secret
Review: 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 12 (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.