Tom's Hardware > All Reviews > Storage > Optical Storage > Plextor PX-708A DVD±R/±RW Recorder Goes 8X

Plextor PX-708A DVD±R/±RW Recorder Goes 8X

06:00 - Friday 21 November 2003 by Roland Marianna

The recorder industry is buzzing with excitement. After the + and - format duel, which resulted in a tie, the manufacturers turned their attention to speed, now their only source of difference. With the two formats and the two recording types - writable and rewritable - we now have four figures that can be improved.

Plextor is now leader of the pack with its PX-708A recording DVD+Rs at an 8X speed. For the rest, the Plextor is faster than the other ones around at the moment with 4X in DVD+RW, 4X in DVD-R and 2X in DVD-RW. The table below gives the specs for the PX-708A.

Plextor PX-708A
Format	Dual DVD-R/RW - DVD+R/RW
Memory cache	2 MB
Firmware version	1.01
Speed
Read speed, CD	40x (6 MB/s) CAV
Read speed, DVD	12x (16,2 MB/s) CAV
Write speed, CD-R	40x (6 MB/s) P-CAV
Write speed, CD-RW	24x (3,6 MB/s) CAV
Write speed, DVD-R	4x (5,4 MB/s) CLV
Write speed, DVD+R	8x (11 MB/s) Z-CLV
Write speed, DVD-RW	2x (2,7 MB/s) CLV
Write speed, DVD+RW	4x (5,4 MB/s) CLV
Access Time
CD	100 ms
DVD	150 ms
Supported Reading Format
CD	CD-DA, CD-Extra, CD-ROM Mode-1, CD-ROM Mode-2, CD-ROM XA, Photo-CD, Video-CD, Multisession, CD TEXT, CD-I, CD+G, UDF
DVD	DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, Multiborder, Multisession, DVD+VR, DVD-VR (Read only)
Supported Writing Format
CD	Track at Once, Disc at Once, Packet Write (variable and fixed), Multisession, Session at Once, CD-MRW (Mt. Rainier)
DVD	DVD+R/RW : Sequential Write, Multisession, Random Access Write DVD+MRW (Physical formatting in background) DVD-R/R : Disc at Once, Incremental recording, Multiborder recording, Restricted Overwritin