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

Average customer rating:

Finally a drive that recognizes all blank DVD media

Dont waist you money

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

Manufacturer: Plextor
ProductGroup: CE
Binding: Electronics

CD-ROM Drives | Drives & Storage | Computer Add-Ons | Computers & Add-Ons | Categories | Electronics
Accessories:

Verbatim DVD+R Double Layer Solution Kit

Verbatim 3 Pack 8.5GB DVD+R Double Layer DVDs with Jewel Case (95014)

ASIN: B00068S59O

Product Description

The PX-716UF DVD DVD?R/RW external IEEE 1394 and Hi-Speed USB drive from Plextor offers all the advantages of its 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 4.7GB 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.

Customer Reviews:

Finally a drive that recognizes all blank DVD media.......2007-01-05

Neither the built-in NEC DVD+R, an added internal IOMagic DVD+-R, nor an external Sony DVD+-R will even allow me to try to record many of the blank DVD media. They simply don't recognize them as recordable discs. And when they do, the success rate has been very low.

So I took a chance paying more (~$200) for the Plextor and both problems have been eliminated. I have had only one burn failure and at least 50 successful ones so far. Thus, I give this unit top marks. As far as the bundled software goes, I never even tried to install it after reading the previous review and similar reviews on other sites.

The drive is very quiet and solidly built. I'm happy I can now use my collection of various manufacturer's blank discs.

Dont waist you money.......2005-06-17

I like the drive. I upgraded from a 708UF. However the Roxio Software that ships with the drive is very unstable. As a matter of fact it installs a packet writer driver that will tear up your system. You can not uninstall this software unless you uninstall all the included software.

The only way I can keep my computer from constantly rebooting is to turn off the 716UF.

Plextor has been no help. The only comment they had was to take the drive back for a refund.

Im currently using the software that came with my 708 drive and if I had the chance I would return the 716uf drive but my daugter managed to grab my 708 drive so Im stuck.

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

Average customer rating:

DVD9 and DVD5. Does Both. Plextor Styleeeee! HOOOT!

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

Manufacturer: Plextor
ProductGroup: CE
Binding: Electronics

ASIN: B00068S5Q2

Product Description

Customer Reviews:

DVD9 and DVD5. Does Both. Plextor Styleeeee! HOOOT!.......2005-10-04

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.

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

Average customer rating:

A dvd write drive that works close to 100% of the time
Plextor Dosn't Stand Behind Their Defective Products
Works great when it actually works
DVD9 and DVD5. Does Both. Plextor Styleeeee! HOOOT!
Spectacular drive, BUT.......

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

Manufacturer: Plextor
ProductGroup: CE
Binding: Electronics

Accessories:

Product Features:

Plextor Software Bundle For Windows -
Plextools Professional software allows powerful functions control with an easy-to-use interface and includes Plextor premium features for SilentMode, GigaRec, VariRec, Q-Check and SecureRecording.
Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 DVD Basic Edition 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 back up important data against loss due to viruses, newly installed software, user error and damaged hardware.
Plextor Software Bundle For Macintosh -

ASIN: B00068S5A8

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:

A dvd write drive that works close to 100% of the time.......2006-12-17

I say close to 100% because I have had 2 failures doing writes to the drive. Yes, it could have been the software that froze, but it might have been the firmware too. Unlike the exact same drives reviewed by a few others, it has recognized every single blank DVD I have tried. I wish I could say that for the built-in NEC DVD+R that came with my Dell. It was always very picky and finally I gave up on it. Then I bought a second internal model made by IO Magic. It reads everything quite well but doesn't write DVD-anythings nor even CD-Rs. So it was onto an external Sony drive that works ok until the firmware somehow loses connection with the computer, and then the drive no longer appears (and the disc is ruined).

Additionally, the Plextor's the only one that consistently works with DVDXCOPY or DVDNEXTCOPY.

Plextor Dosn't Stand Behind Their Defective Products.......2006-10-05

My first PX-716UF quit after six months.
$20 to ship it to them and they send me another.

The 2nd PX-716UF quit after four months and 30 burns.

Plextor refused to replace the 2nd unit, since they only
cover the replacement for 3 months.

Don't waste your money on their defective products.

Works great when it actually works.......2006-10-02

In short this drive is great when it actually works. I spent almost $80 trying to find cdr and dvd media that this drive would recognize. The most puzzling thing by far is that after burning many CDRs of a certain brand the drive would stop recognizing the brand of cdr for no apparent reason. It would work again later. So when the moons are aligned it worked. Plextor replaced my first one but the it started up again. Just a big hassle.

So I won't be buying a Plextor drive again.

DVD9 and DVD5. Does Both. Plextor Styleeeee! HOOOT!.......2005-10-13

Spectacular drive, BUT..............2005-07-24

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.

Product Description

VideOh! DVD is the next step up from VideOh! CD - which allows you to easily translate to DVD (MPEG-2) format. VideOh! DVD is USB 2.0-ready and USB 1.1-compatible. Simply connect one end of the VideOh! DVD device to your video source such as a camcorder, TV, or VCR and the other to the USB connection found on your PC. Transfer your video into your PC. Then use the included Sonic MyDVD software and have fun trimming and editing your footage, or just select your favorite clips for saving onto the more durable and easily shared DVD or CD media.

Amazon.com Review

Adaptec's VideOh! DVD converter kit captures and digitizes analog composite and S-video signals and delivers them through your PC's high-speed USB 2.0 port. Bundled Sonic MyDVD and ArcSoft ShowBiz software help you edit clips, create menus, and record your projects onto DVD and CD media.

To test VideOh!, we connected the power supply, USB cable, and external video source (a VCR) and installed the device driver. Next, we installed the bundled software and restarted our PC. The entire installation process was simple and intuitive, requiring only about 10 minutes.

In Sonic MyDVD, we followed onscreen instructions to create a new DVD project, to capture and save a brief video clip, to create a simple DVD menu, and finally to burn the clip onto a DVD-R disc. After only an hour from opening the box, we had a playable DVD. Even in "best" mode, picture quality was only fair--slightly faded from the original, a few artifacts in the top and bottom scan lines, and occasional dropped frames--but consistent with our expectations for a low-end capture system.

Subsequent tests to create more interesting multi-chapter DVDs were unsuccessful. As we tried to capture clips longer than about eight minutes, to trim and edit clips, and to burn DVDs with more than about 20 minutes of content, VideOh! manifested show-stopping bugs. Even after downloading an updated device driver, our system would completely freeze at seemingly random times after MyDVD had been running for several minutes. Testing VideOh! with other capture and editing software is, unfortunately, not an option, as the manual warns that the "Adaptec VideOh! DVD converter kit supports video capture only by using MyDVD."

For extremely simple video-capture tasks and very short DVDs, VideOh! worked adequately well and was easy to use. For hobbyists who want to produce DVDs at home, we would recommend a more functional product. --Mike Brown

Pros:

Quick setup
Easy to learn and use

Cons:

Soft video quality
Too many bugs

Customer Reviews:

Great product for the price.......2007-01-10

The unit is compact and the resulting picture on a 19" LCD monitor is great. Highly recommended.

Only works with THEIR software!!!.......2006-11-28

Just got one of these and tried to use it with Windows-Video and with Adobe Premiere - The drivers for this device are not standard and neither of these products can access the device. On TOP of all that, I can't take short clips from VHS tapes to make a holiday montage (remember the copyright free-use laws???) because the device detects Macrovision signal encoded on the tape. On the cover of the box it even says "Convert any analog video to DVD or CD", which is not true.

Pretty Bad Stuff - Software abysmal.......2006-04-24

Saw some reviews where folks go this to work, wish i was one of them. I can capture to a 1.6 gig MPEG file that is 30 minutes of video, but when i burn using sonic, it turns out to be a 5 minute dvd. Sonic decided to end the DVD at an apparent random spot! AND it takes 2 hours for the privilege of finding out that your DVD is a coaster. I'm not optimistic about the email support. It will probably be back at compusa before they reply. Sonic support web page wont even load!
Running on XP sp2. Capture seems to work most of the time, though it will crash/hang for no apparent reason, requiring reboot, just getting it to DVD is the problem. The encoding is foreign to any 3rd party ive tried, like tmpgenc, so im stuck with sonic. I tried on my PC and my laptop with same result. Boxing this up to go back to COMPUSA tomorrow. I think 12 hours in front of my pc trying to make a single DVD is enough.

No Problems Transferring Video.......2005-11-15

I had purchased and returned the ADS Tech DVD Express 2.0 model because I was never able to get it to work. The Adaptec VideOh! USB 2.0 DVD Video Converter Kit was very easy to setup. Within an hour I was watching videos that I had transferred from VCR tape to my PC.

I agree with another reviewer that other editing software is required. It was simple to use the MyDVD software to transfer the video to computer, but it was too slow and unwieldy to edit the video (like adding scenes). I used Roxio's Easy CD and DVD Creator software to edit the videos and produce really nice DVDs.

Be Careful!!.......2005-03-09

This is a quote from Adaptec FAQ for this device:

"The VideOh! products cannot be used by Windows Movie Maker to capture video, as they are not designed to work under the application. The software supplied with the units - MyDVD - was written specifically for the Adaptec drivers to capture video."

What it means is that this device cannot be used with most of the third party software out there. They don't tell you this on the box! If this matters to you, don't buy this product.

But, other than that..... the device works fine.

Electronics:

Electronics

Electronics