Review: Plextor PX-612U Reviewed by: Antonis Sapanidis Provided by: Plextor EU Firmware: 1.02 Manufactured: April 2012

The Plextor name
is well known among the MyCE community, mainly for their outstanding CD-RW and
DVD-RW drives. Over the last few years Plextor has also expanded their product
line by adding NAS and SSDs to their portfolio, however Plextor is still
manufacturing optical drives, and most importantly they keep the quality of
their products as high as they used to back in the days when they had the “King
of quality” logo.

In case that you
don’t know the history of Plextor, you can always visit their website and find
all the information that you need, by clicking here.

Plextor was kind
enough to provide me with the PX-612U external burner. What makes this drive
unique is the ability for it to be connected to a TV and be used as a source
for playback, Plextor has named this PlexTV. Alongside this you will also find
all the typical read and burn functions for CD-R/RW and DVD±R/RW DL media, but
we will look at all these features in more detail later in this review.

For now let’s
start with the specifications, the packaging, and also what comes with the
drive.

 

Drive Specifications

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Here we can see
the specifications of the Plextor PX-612U, as they appear on the Plextor website.

Packaging

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Now let's take a
look at the packaging that the drive is shipped in.

The drive that Plextor
sent me was the retail version, and we can see the package and contents below.

Box front

Box rear

Top side

 

Box left and right sides

 

What’s inside the box

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Now it’s time to
take a look at the drive itself and what the drive came shipped with.

The retail package
contained the drive, a split Y USB cable, two software discs, an instruction
manual for PlexUtilities, a warranty and quick start guide, a cleaning cloth
and a carrying pouch. Plextor has done an outstanding job on the packaging and
include everything you need.

Now let’s take a look at the drive.

Drive front

The front of the Plextor
PX-612U has the Plextor logo on the left side and the drive name, after that
there is a blue LED, the EJECT button and the emergency EJECT hole. On the
right side we found the regular logos for CD-R/DVD+R and DVD-R.

Drive rear

At the back of the
drive there is only the USB connection.

Drive top

Drive bottom

On the bottom of
the drive we can see the labels with all the info, and we can see also that the
drive was manufactured on April 2011 in China.

A closer look inside
the Plextor PX-612U. Disassembling the drive is a very easy task as you only
have to remove the four top screws, however I don’t recommend doing this,
and also remember that by opening your drive you will invalidate your
warranty.

The Plextor PX-612U is using the MEDIATEK MT1807LN
chipset.

Now let’s head
to the next page where we take a look at the features of the drive….

 

Test machine

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For this review we
will be using a computer with the following configuration:

Hardware:

• Motherboard:
  Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4 (Intel P55 chipset)
• Processor:
  Intel i7 750
• RAM: 8 GB
  Kingston dual channel kit DDR3 
• GFX: ATI HD
  5670 ( 1GB GDDR5 HDCP compliant)
• Hard disk OS:
  OCZ Vertex 2 60GB
• Hard disk storage: Samsing Spinpoint F1 1TB
• PSU: Chieftec
  500W
• Display:
  FujitsuSiemens 22”
• Operating System: Windows 7 Premium 64x

The Plextor PX-612U
was connected to a USB2 port on our test PC. The drive came shipped with
firmware version 1.02.

Included software package

---

The Plextor
PX-612U came supplied with two DVDs, the first one is PlexUtilities and the
second disc includes the Nero 10 essentials burning software. An exceptional
package that will unlock the full potential of your Plextor DVD burner.

Plextor Software disc.

Nero 10 essentials

Note: We did not
install any of this software on our review notebook or test it, you can find a
quick review of the Nero 10 suite here,
and also a closer look at PlexUtilities here.

Installed software:

For conducting our
various tests, we will be using the following applications.

• Nero Burning ROM 11
• Nero DiscSpeed
• Exact Audio Copy
• Opti Drive Control
• DVDFab

Features and techniques

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BookType (Bitsetting):

The Plextor
PX-612U doesn’t automatically set the bitsetting to DVD-ROM.

Here is how you can
check if your discs are really written with DVD-ROM book type:

Opti Drive Control,
click the Disc info button and you should see something like this:

Disc Quality Scanning

The Plextor
PX-612U supports CD and DVD scanning through PlexUtilities only, other software
like Opti Dirve Control will not allow you to perform any kind of quality scan,
as we can see from the picture below.

Writing technique

---

Now it’s time to
take a closer look at the write technology used by the Plextor PX-612U.

For these tests I
used Opti Drive Control, and wrote a full disc at the drive’s maximum speed.

CD Recordable:

According to the
specifications of the Plextor PX-612U it should be able to write CD-R media at
a maximum speed of 24x.

The Plextor
PX-612U uses P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity),
to write at its maximum speed of 24x. This gives an average speed of 17.61x and
a total writing time of 5 minutes and 5 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

As we can see the Plextor
PX-612U is among the fastest drives when writing CD-R media.

CD Re-writable:

According to the
specifications of the Plextor PX-612U it should be able to write CD-RW media at
a maximum speed of 24x.

The Plextor
PX-612U uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity)
to write at its maximum speed of 24x. This gives an average speed of 15.01x and
a total writing time of 5 minutes and 52 seconds.

For comparison we
have made the following table: 

The Plextor
PX-612U topped this test. The drive is the fastest drive we have tested with
CD-RW media, and gave an average speed of 15.01x and a total write time of 5
minutes and 52 seconds.

8x DVD+R/-R writing speed:

According to the
specifications of the Plextor PX-612U, it should be able to write DVD+R/-R
media at a maximum speed of 8x.

DVD+R

The Plextor
PX-612U uses P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity),
to write at its maximum speed of 8x. This gives an average speed of 5.75x and a
total writing time of 11 minutes and 13 seconds.

DVD-R

The Plextor
PX-612U uses P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity),
to write at its maximum speed of 8x. This gives an average speed of 5.83x and a
total writing time of 11 minutes and 23 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

It’s clear the the
Plextor PX-612U isn’t the fastest drive we have tested, however is still fast
enough for an 8x portable drive.

8X DVD+RW writing speed:

According to the
specifications on the Plextor website the drive should be able to write DVD+RW
at a maximum speed of 8x.

The Plextor
PX-612U uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity),
to write at its maximum speed of 8x. This gives an average speed of 4.96x and a
total writing time of 11 minutes and 27 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

The Plextor is the
winner of this test and it was able to finish the burn process in 11 minutes
and 27 seconds.

6x DVD-RW writing speed:

According to the
specifications of the Plextor PX-612U it should be able to write DVD-RW at a
maximum speed of 6x.

The Plextor
PX-612U uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity)
to write at its maximum speed of 6X. This gives an average speed of 4.96x and a
total writing time of 11 minutes and 27 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

The Plextor
PX-612U again gives outstanding performance with DVD-RW media, taking only 11
minutes and 27 seconds to complete the burn.

4x DVD+R DL writing speed:

According to the
specifications of the Plextor PX-612U, it should be able to write DVD+R DL at a
maximum speed of 6x, it also burns DVD-R DL at 6x but I won't be testing that
function now.

The Plextor
PX-612U  uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity)
to write at 6x. This gives an average speed of 4.53x and a total writing time
of 24 minutes and 11 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

Unfortunately I
wasn’t able to test the DVD-R DL burning capability of the Plextor PX-612U, but
the +R DL capabilities of the drive as simply outstanding.

Summary:

The Plextor
PX-612U has excellent writing performance on CD-R and DVD-/+R/RW media.

Let’s head on
to the next page where we will check reading performance….

Reading performance

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For these tests I
will use Opti Drive Control to read various CDs and DVDs, including audio discs
and DVD-VIDEO discs. As already mentioned in the introduction, this drive
supports:

• DVD-ROM 8x
• CD-ROM 24x

Pressed discs:

For this test we
used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing various software that is slightly over 75
minutes in length. Below you will see the produced result:

The Plextor
PX-612U reached 23.98x read speed with the CD disc.

CD Recordable discs:

For the next test I
made a copy of the original CD. The disc we used was an Omega branded 52x
certified CD-R disc manufactured by Plasmon.

This time the
Plextor PX-612U managed to reach a speed of 24.35x

CD Re-writable discs:

Again, I made a
copy of the original CD, but this time I used a Verbatim 12x CD-RW disc (thanks
to Verbatim for providing me with this media).

On this test the
Plextor PX-612U reached 24.38x read speed.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the
digital audio extraction performance of the Plextor PX-612U, I used Optic Drive
Control to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc was 76 minutes in length
(75:50:73).

The Plextor
PX-612U reached 24.13x when reading our test audio disc.

DVD reading performance:

---

Again, we will use
Opti Drive Control to measure the reading performance, this time for various
types of DVD discs. The drive should read pressed single and double layer
DVD-discs at 8x.

Pressed DVD Video:

For our DVD
reading performance tests we are going to start with Single and Double Layered
DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it’s
useful to be able to read the discs at higher speeds if you’re going to extract
(rip) the content of the disc to your hard drive.

DVD Video (single layer)

DVD Video (double layer OTP)

The Plextor
PX-612U had no issues reaching a max speed 8x on both media types and as we can
see the PX-612U isn’t Video_TS riplocked.

DVD – DVD+R/RW:

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For this test we
used a Verbatim 16x DVD+R and a Verbatim 8x DVD+RW with about 4.4GB of data.
Below are the results:

DVD+R

DVD+RW

The Plextor
PX-612U reads our test DVD+R and DVD+RW discs at a max speed of 8x.

DVD – DVD-R/RW:

---

For this test we
used a Verbatim 16x DVD-R disc and a Verbatim 6x DVD-RW disc filled with about
4.4GB of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

DVD-RW

The Plextor
PX-612U again was able to read our test DVD-R/RW discs at a max speed of 8x.

DVD±R DL discs:

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DVD+R DL:

Again the Plextor
PX-612U was able to reach a max speed of 8x.

Summary:

The Plextor
PX-612U has proven to be a very fast and reliable reader.

Now let’s head
over to the next page where we will test CD-R/RW writing performance……

The specifications
of the Plextor PX-612U state that the drive is able to write CD-R/RW discs at
24x. Let us find out how the drive really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

---

For our data
writing tests, we simply burnt a full disc using CD-Speed (create data disc)
function and burnt the discs at the maximum speed allowed.

Write quality:

---

We will test CD-R
discs from many different CD-R manufacturers. To really measure the write
speed, we used the “create data CD” function in Opti Drive Control. The discs
were written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. For the quality test,
we used Opti Drive Control's Disc Quality Scan and
combined this with a Transfer Rate Test to test if the
resulting disc was readable. Also note that different drives and different
reading speeds may affect the results obtained when scanning the discs. We used
an Optiarc AD-7200A and scanned the discs at 48X speed.

There is more
than one way to handle C1 and C2 error detection/correction, but a simple and
common way is to detect and correct up to two errors per frame in each stage
and detect three or more errors:

• E11: 1 error detected and corrected by C1
  layer
• E21: 2 errors detected and corrected by
  C1 layer
• E31: 3 or more errors detected but not
  corrected by C1 layer

The sum of
these (per second) is called the Block Error Rate: BLER=E11+E21+E31

• E32: 3 or more errors detected but not corrected
  by C2 layer

Any E31 is
un-correctable by the C1 layer and will result in the bytes in that frame being
redistributed into multiple frames which are passed to the C2 layer.

Any E32 is
un-correctable by the C2 layer and will result in interpolation being used for
Audio CDs or will result in third layer error correction being used for Data
CDs.

Different drives
have different ways of reporting these errors in a Disc Quality scan.  Lite-On
CD-RW drives will report C1 and C2 errors this way:

• C1=BLER=E11+E21+E31
• C2=E32

Here is an
easier way to look at Disc Quality Scanning:

A written CD-R
disc will always have some C1 errors; C1 errors are easily corrected by the
drive’s error correction capabilities. The next level of errors is C2, while C2
errors could also be corrected by most drive’s error correction capabilities;
they are not wanted on a good quality disc. A good disc should not contain any
C2 errors, and preferably have an average C1 error amount of below 2.0 for the
best discs, or at least below 10.0 averages for good quality discs. After C2
errors, there are only un-correctable errors that will make a disc unusable.

In short, our
analysis will be based on this guideline to determine the quality of the burnt
disc:

CD-R/RW quality scans guideline

Below are the
obtained results:

An excellent
result to start our CD-R tests.

To be honest this
is the first disc from this batch that didn’t have any C2 errors, so it looks
like Plextor has done a very good job with their firmware for this media.

The result is
good, but I would have liked to have seen a better one.

The result is OK.

Writing Quality with Re-Writable
discs:

---

The C1 levels are
very high at the beginning of the disc but they decrease dramatically after a
certain point. The TRT is flawless. The result is good especially if we
consider the fact that this disc is heavily used.

Summary:

Both CD-R and
CD-RW writing quality are generally very good even on low quality media the
drive is able to give an acceptable result.

Now let’s head
on to the next page where we will test DVD recordable performance….

The specifications
of this drive tell us that it should write DVD±R at 8x and DVD+RW/-RW at 8x/6x.
In this part, we will measure the writing times for various types of DVD+R/RW
and DVD-R/RW discs. We will also focus on write quality and media
compatibility.

Write quality:

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Disc Quality Scanning - PI/PO:

DVDs use an error
detection and correction system (ECC) which is usually transparent to the end-user,
but we can get an idea of the "quality" of a disc by performing Disc
Quality Scanning, which shows how many errors the drive is detecting and
correcting behind the scenes.

There are two
layers or stages of error detection and correction on all DVD media; these are
called Parity Inner (PI) and Parity Outer (PO). Data is arranged in ECC blocks
containing rows and columns of user data with additional columns of PI error
correction and rows of PO error correction.

An ECC block
contains 32 KByte of user data with some added control data, scrambled and
arranged in 192 rows and 172 columns with an additional 10 columns of PI error
correction and 16 rows of PO error correction.

The Parity Inner
stage is performed first, and up to 5 bytes in a row can be corrected. Any row
with one or more errors is counted as a Parity Inner Error (PIE). Any row with
more than 5 errors is considered un-correctable and is counted as a Parity
Inner Failure (PIF).

The Parity Outer
stage is performed next and will detect and attempt to correct any errors that
are still left after the PI stage. Any column that has errors is counted as a
Parity Outer Error (POE), and any column that has un-correctable errors is
counted as a Parity Outer Failure (POF). If a POF occurs the drive can sometimes
re-read the problematic spot and correct the problem; this happens only during
normal reading and not during scanning, however.

Disc Quality
scanning is influenced by the drive performing the test, and that's why
different drives report different results and even the same drive will report
(slightly) different results when scanning the same disc again. Please note
that PI/PO and Jitter scans only test some aspects of disc quality and that
other important aspects are not revealed.

But what is a good
scan? That is a discussion that we don’t think will end soon, as different
drives report different amounts of errors, some players are more picky about
media than others, and so on. But as a comparison we present you with scans
from two pressed DVD discs:

The scan above
shows the results from a pressed, Single Layer DVD-Video disc (Goldeneye).

The above scan
shows the result from a pressed Double Layer DVD-Video disc (The Green Mile).

The Lite-On DVD
burners used in this review report errors as follows:

·        
PIE per 8 ECC blocks
(rows with 1 or more bytes in error)

·        
PIF per 1 ECC block
(rows with 6 or more bytes in error)

We want to see as
low error numbers as possible.
PIE per 8 ECC blocks should be no higher than 280.
PIF per 1 ECC block should be no higher than 4.

Both the pressed
DVD-discs above are well within the standards if we ignore the single PIF spike
in the DL scan.

If you want to
look at the standards for yourself, download the ECMA 267 Standard for DVD-ROM,
the ECMA 337 Standard for DVD+R/RW and the ECMA 338 Standard for DVD-R/RW at http://www.ecma-international.org.

Notice that there are
other aspects such as disc reflectivity, tracking errors and so on that also
will affect the readability of a DVD disc – but for this we do not have
measuring equipment available.

Also, another note
is that we have scanned the discs at 4X speed, by lowering the speed to 2X
(DVD-R/RW)/2.4X (DVD+R/RW) or 1X the amount of reported errors may drop on some
discs. We scanned at 4X CLV due to lower speeds taking too much time.

To see if there is
a connection between the reported amount of errors and readability of the discs
we also include the reading curve from an Optiarc AD-7200A DVD-Writer which by
default is able to read DVD±R media at 16x speed. A small speed reduction near
the end is still accepted on good discs, but serious reading problems or
reading failures is a bad sign.

Jitter:

Jitter
is a very complex subject and even more difficult to explain when we start to
use optical drives designed for the home market to measure jitter values.

Let’s
first look at the DVD specification for pressed DVD discs (in the bold part
courtesy of Pioneer Electronics).

“The
DVD design target is that when the worst-case disc allowed by the
specification, considering the economics of production, is played using the
worst-case pickup that can be produced in volume economically, the byte error
rate after error correction will still be 1 x 10-^-20, which is good
enough to be acceptable for computer applications.

Since
the above target is for "after error correction," the error
correction capability must be calculated. Considering the trade-off between
error correction capability and the overhead of the added redundancy, the DVD
format was set to one ECC block per 32 KB. This requires a byte error rate
before correction of 1 x 10^-2.
In order to achieve good economy on both the part of the discs and the playback
mechanisms. The current disc tilt specification was determined as a result of
the efforts on both sides.

As
will be explained hereafter, it is difficult to make the error rate a
specification of the disc itself. Therefore, a jitter standard is set by the
DVD specifications. A simple calculation based on a normal distribution
requires that the jitter rate be under 15.4%, and experimental results indicate
that jitter must be under 16%, to achieve the required error rate. Since the
disc tilt varies within a revolution, it was decided to adopt the design
concept that jitter must remain within 16% at the instantaneous peak value of
tilt. Since it is actually very difficult to measure the peak value, the
concept became to measure the average jitter at under 15%, and the byte error
rate at under 5 x 10-3.”

What
is Jitter?

In basic terms, we
could say jitter is a product of “pit and land distortion” In other words, when
the drive reading the disc has to compensate by means of a “tilt servo” which
constantly tries to move and refocus the PUH lens for optimum tracking and
tries to compensate for the imperfections of pits and lands on the pressed or
recordable media. This is further compounded by the hardware used for recording
and playback. Not only is the
record and replay process limited by the resolution of the optical pickup, it
is also horribly non-linear. In addition, the playback of the pits is subject
to non-linear crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track, and also from pits
in nearby tracks.

The things that causes jitter divide into three main
types.

• Variation in pit length and width.
• Crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track.
• Crosstalk from pits in adjacent tracks.

 

Variation in pit length and width.

The recorded pits themselves are not perfectly
accurate. Anything which causes variations in the sizes of the pits will
produce jitter. A prime culprit of this is sudden variations in laser power
(laser noise). If laser power varies, then the laser beam itself changes and
will vary in intensity and possibly focus. This will cause the pit length and
width to also vary and we now have jitter.

Crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track.

If the pits are not totally accurate, then the laser
beam spot may overrun a pit and gather data from the adjacent pit in the same
track, or if the “land” is to short, then the laser beam spot can be influenced
by the adjacent pit and this is called inter-symbol interference. Inter-symbol
interference is worse at low recording velocities, because the pits are shorter
and closer together. And it is the cause of "deviation" of the pit
lengths.

Crosstalk from pits in adjacent tracks.

Crosstalk between pits in adjacent tracks is caused by
the laser beam spot being larger than the width of the track. It is a largely
random contribution and is worse at lower recorded velocities, because the
highest frequency components of the readout signal in the wanted track, with
which the crosstalk is competing, are weaker.

Some
other factors to consider

There
are many aspects to consider when we add Recordable DVD media into the mix. We
are now dealing with an organic dye, which is inherently unstable. We must also
consider the equipment we are using to measure jitter is aimed at the home
market. So we must also take into account variations between drives that we are
unable to calibrate for such tests.

Now
let’s look at some of the hardware limitations of the drives we are using to
measure jitter.

If
there is no tilt, then the jitter value includes components from light source
noise, circuit noise, disc noise, standard interference between symbols (inter
-symbol interference), and some small amount of crosstalk from the neighbouring
tracks.

Next
we consider manufacturing variation in the circuitry.
Variation due to the circuitry have noise-like characteristics, and increase
the minimum jitter level, but are thought to have a very small effect on tilt
margin. Factors such as offset in the servo circuit, however, both increase the
jitter level and decrease tilt margin.

How
we will measure jitter.

We
will be using a Lite-On DVD writer to conduct these tests along with Nero
DiscSpeed and Opti Drive Control at 4x scanning speed. In the screen shot below
we can see a PI/PIF scan including a jitter test (the purple graph in the lower
window) we carried out on a single layer DVD+R media.

Now,
let's find a reasonable average jitter level. Experimental results indicate
that 8% average value or less is a desirable figure, based on the DVD
specification. That does not mean that jitter average values above 8% are bad.
In fact, many optical drives will quite happily read recordable DVD media with
jitter values of more than 14% average without any problems. Other drives,
including standalone DVD players may begin to struggle reading discs with
average jitter values above 10%. So there is a fairly wide range of acceptable
values. One must test their own playback devices to see what they can cope
with.

However,
for the purpose of having a basic guideline we can use in our reviews, we
present a rating system for average jitter values.

·        
Less than 8% (average) = Very good

·        
8% - 9% (average) = good

·        
9% - 12% (average) = average

·        
Above 12% (average) = poor

Here is an easier explanation on
how to read the test results

Maybe this got too
technical, and you are wondering what to look for in your Opti Drive Control Quality
Scans?

Use this as a guideline for good discs:

·        
PI (Parity Inner): No
larger areas on the disc should exceed 280 PI-8 errors, do not worry too much
about high single spikes that exceed 280.

·        
PIF (Parity Inner
Failures): No larger areas on the disc should exceed 4 PIF-1 errors, do not
worry too much about high single spikes that exceed 4.

·        
Jitter: An average
jitter value of 8% or less is considered very good. You should not worry too
much if the average value is slightly above this figure.

And as always;
lower is better

DVD+R media compatibility and
write quality:

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In these tests we
will be using a Lite-On iHAS624 with firmware GL2A along with Opti Drive
Control to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7200A
with firmware 1.09 along with Opti Drive Control for our read-back tests.

We start this test
with a very impressive result. C1 and C2 errors and Jitter are very low, and finish
this test with a perfect TRT.

Again we continue
our tests with a very good result from this JVC media.

Again an
outstanding result.

The result is very
good for this media, acceptable C1 and C2 errors, and the result for Jitter is
very impressive.

DVD+RW media compatibility and
write quality:

---

We used the same
test procedures as in our DVD+R tests.

Below are our
obtained results.

The result for
this heavily used media can be consider as very good, slightly elevated C1 and
Jitter, but very a impressive C2 result and a perfect TRT to finish our tests.

Summary:

The performance of
the Plextor PX-612U is simply outstanding, the drive was able to give great
results on all of my test media.

Now let’s look
at DVD-R/RW performance and quality on the next page….

DVD-R media compatibility and
write quality:

---

In these tests we will
be using a Lite-On iHAS624 with firmware GL2A along with Opti Drive Control to
measure the disc quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7200A with firmware
1.09 along with Opti Drive Control for our read-back tests.

Again the Plextor
did a very nice job with this media, however C2 errors are slightly higher than
what I would like to see.

I didn’t expect to
see anything else from this media and the Plextor PX-612U does a fantastic job
burning these DVD-R’s.

The overall result
is very good, low Jitter, low PIF errors and a perfect TRT, but I expected more
from this media.

Another excellent
result for the JVC media, and as we can see the Plextor did an outstanding job
burning them.

DVD-RW media compatibility and
write quality:

---

For this test we
used the same testing procedures as in our DVD-R tests.

The Plextor
PX-612U gave an outstanding burning performance with this heavily used media.

Summary:

The Plextor
PX-612U gave almost excellent performance on DVD-R and DVD-RW, a few tweaks
from Plextor and the drive should be able to give better results.

Let’s head on
to the next page where we will test DVD R DL writing performance and quality……

DVD+R/-R Double Layer writing
performance and quality:

---

The Plextor
PX-612U supports the DVD+R DL/-R DL standard for writing Double Layer/Dual
Layer discs with a size around 8.5 GB at a writing speed of 6x.

DVD+R DL:

For these tests we
used Opti Drive Control to burn our test disc. We then used a Lite-On iHAS624
along with Opti Drive Control to test the disc’s quality; we then finally ran a
read-back test on our Optiarc AD-7200A.

The Plextor PX-61U
managed to give a very good result for this made in India media, the elevating
errors at the end of the disc is a trademark of this batch of dual layer discs.
The disc has a perfect TRT and acceptable PIF and PIE errors, with better media
the drive could probably do a much better job.

Summary:

The Plextor
PX-612U has very good writing quality on DVD+R DL media, and as I said it would
probably have done a better job with a higher quality media.

Let’s round off
this review with the author's page, containing some real world and advanced
tests....

Real world tests:

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Introduction:

On this page, the
author of the review has the freedom to run tests that she/he thinks will
enhance the review. These tests are unlike our standard tests, which we try to
keep consistent throughout the whole review team, so that our reviews are as comparable
as possible. This page gives the reviewer the opportunity to show some advanced
and real world tests that other review team members may not be able to run.

Real World tests:

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Real world tests
are designed to simulate what normal users might use their drives for in
everyday use. For example, writing discs with a burning application.

Audio Extraction:

For this test we
used Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to extract the audio to our hard drive. According
to EAC the Plextor PX-612U does support caching, Accurate Stream, Audio cache
and C2 Error Info.

Below are the
results produced by EAC:

Burst mode

Secure mode

The Plextor
PX-612U performed extremely well and reached a top speed of 23.8x in “Burst
mode”, and as it was expected was slower when reading in secure mode, reaching
a max speed of only 5.5x.

Nero Burning ROM:

In the following tests we will burn discs from the main
media groups with Nero Burning ROM.

CD-R:

For our data
writing tests, we simply set up a new compilation of 698MB using Nero Burning
ROM software. The writing method used is DAO (Disc At Once), and the disc is
set up as a non-multisession disc with “finalize disc” enabled. The screenshot
below shows how long it takes to write a disc at the highest speed. (24x)

The Plextor
PX-612U burnt our test CD-R at 24x in 5 minutes and 9 seconds.

Let’s compare with
other drives in our table below.

The Plextor is a
very fast drive when it burns CD-Rs.

DVD R:

In this test we
will measure the time for writing to DVD R discs. We used Nero Burning ROM to
burn a data compilation containing 4.3GB of data. We used the Disc-At-Once
write method.

The Plextor
PX-612U burnt our test DVD R at 8x, and gave as an excellent result of 10
minutes and 31 seconds.

Let’s compare with
other drives in our table below.

Clearly the
fastest drive in this test.

DVD DL:

In this test we
will measure the time for writing to DVD R DL discs. We used Nero Burning ROM to
burn a data compilation containing 7.92GB of data. We used the Disc-At-Once
write method.

The Plextor
PX-612U burnt our test DVD R DL at 6x giving a total time of 24 minutes and 18
seconds.

Let’s compare with
other drives in our table below.

Again the PX-612U
gave the fastest time.

CSS Encrypted DVD-Video ripping
tests:

Most modern DVD
burners don’t have Video riplock and in most cases will read a pressed
DVD-Video SL disc at 16x speed. However, some drives use a CSS riplock when it
comes to extracting data from the disc. If you attempt to rip a pressed
DVD-Video with CSS encryption to your hard drive, then the ripping speed may be
locked at a much lower speed than 16x.

Of course, running
this test on a slimline drive, we can expect the results to be much slower than
running the tests on a modern full sized internal DVD writer. However, we felt
that this would be an interesting and useful test.

We should point
out, that ripping and compressing a DL DVD-Video disc to DVD 5 format is quite
CPU intensive. The more power your system has, the less likely your system
power will affect the results. The PC used in this review is equipped with a
fast Intel Quad Core processor and fast hard drives. We checked to make sure
our review PC was not having an impact on the results.

For this test we
will use Fengtao Software's DVDFab.

DVD-ROM:

DVD-Video single layer “Dario Argento's Phantom of the
Opera”

DVD-Video double layer “Iron Man”

Thanks to Fengtao Software
– For providing a full DVD Fab licence.

The Plextor
PX-612U isn’t video_ts riplocked, the result is very good considering that this
is an external slimdrive.

To compare with
other drives, we present the table below.

The Plextor is a
very fast drive with SL media, and it tops our chart when it comes to dual
layer media.

Benq CD-R scans.

At this time I
will be providing some additional scans without any comments on the results or
the quality of the burn. This time all of the extra CD-R scans will be
performed with a Benq 1650 drive. The Benq drive will be able to give a more
detailed view on the quality of the CD-R burn. Enjoy the extra scans, and
remember, lower is better.

JVC

Maxell

Omega

TDK

Verbatim

PlexTV

Let’s have a quick
word about PlexTV. Plextor has implemented a very useful function on their
latest portable DVD/CD burner and with this function you can use your drive
with your smart TV, or TV’s with a built in media player.

Everything is
described in the documentation that Plextor includes with the drive, but allow
me to give you a brief demonstration of how to use this feature. First of all
you will need a TV that has a built in media player, then you have to connect the
Plextor drive to your TV, press the Eject button to eject the tray and then
press and hold the eject button for 5 seconds. Once you do that you will see
the blue light (as seen on the picture below.

Once you have a
solid blue light, you can insert your disc, close the tray, and wait a few
seconds for the drive to read the disc. Remember that this may take some extra
time, especially if you have a lot of small files, such as pictures. Also you
need to remember that you won't be able to playback copy protected DVDs, unless
your TV has software to do this.

As we can see, on
my Samsung TV the drive was identified as a DVDR PX-612U, now all you have to
do is simply press OK to enter the media player menu, and start watching your favourite
movies or listen to music. Also you can change to various others discs simply
by ejecting and inserting the new disc. You can remove the drive by following
the instructions that your TV has on safely ejecting external storage devices.

 

This concludes
our Plextor PX-612U review. To read the conclusion, click on the link below

Positive:

• PlexTV.
• Eye appealing
  design.
• Very fast reader
  on all media, CDs and DVDs
• Doesn’t require an
  external PSU.
• Excellent build
  quality.
• Excellent
  software bundle.
• Small size,
  portable and USB powered
• Legendary two
  year warranty from Plextor.

Negative:

• Sometimes it
  takes a few more seconds to complete a burn.

 

Conclusion:

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Let us summarise the
most important positive and negative points below:

The main
positive points:

I will start with
PlexTV which is a very useful feature have, also the drive has a unique style
that I personally like very much. As we can expect, Plextor did a great job with
this drive on all of its features. Starting with excellent reading capabilities
of the drive for CDs and DVDs, but also the drive does an excellent job writing
to all media that it supports.

The split Y cable
will be able to provide enough power so that the drive will work correctly on
your PC and your TV. The software bundled with the Plextor PX-612U is simply
outstanding. Plextor not only provides you with a burning application (Nero
10), but they continue providing their PlexUtilities, a combination that simply
unleashes your control over the features of the drive.  

The main
negative points:

The only
“negative” that I was able to find is that sometimes the drive requires some
extra seconds to complete the burn. Other than that the drive has nothing
negative.

To sum up, this is what we would
say:

“The Plextor
PX-612U is an excellent drive. It’s able to give excellent burn results, and it
not only looks great near your PC, but also great in your living room.”

Because of the
good feature set and generally good writing quality across the main media
groups, I decided to award the Plextor PX-612U with the “Editor's Choice”
award, and give the “Excellent" rating.

Thanks to:

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