Faster, Faster
After much anticipation, last month, Plextor announced the PX-760A drive. Why is this drive generating some attention, at a time when the Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD next gen' format war is preparing for battle? The 760A is notable because it claims to have broken the 16x DVD burning barrier.Just to remind those of us who are "optical drive junkies," CD writers topped out at 52x for both reading and writing. It was accepted that if the drive rotated the disc rotated any faster, the rotational forces would pull the disc apart. We're talking 10,000 rpm for a 52x speed. For comparison, your car's engine probably redlines around 5,000 to 6,000 rpm. (Bill, I wouldn't push your Camaro that hard; I know you don't have the time for an engine rebuild). DVD writers have been maxed out at 16x for some time now. Yup, you guessed it, the same rotational speed barrier; turns out that 16x on a DVD is just short of the magic 10,000 rpm "barrier."
Well, just like so many obstacles, many of us accepted it, and thought that the speeds had simply maxed out. In my mind, this was probably due to the time I had a disc fragment into tiny pieces when it was being read at 52x. Apparently the Plextor engineering crew thought they could push the speeds one step further- to 18x! Curiously, the 760A drive can write "select media" at that speed, but can read "only" at the 16x speed. Let me translate: this means that no one is certifying media for 18x, but that higher quality media can be written faster than anyone intended it to be written at (in optical drive slang this is known as overspeeding the media).
Skeptical? If anyone can do it, Plextor probably can. They released their 712 drive which featured 12x writing of select 8x DVD media, and had some success with it. On high quality media, it worked well for the most part.
Let's just say that while I'm not completely skeptical, I'm darn curious if it can be done and with a decent write quality. I'm prepared to crack some Pepsi's and endure some doom to find out at some point. If and when I do, you'll be the first to know.
--Jonas
posted by digitaldoc at 10:01 PM
3 Comments:
Faster Schmaster. Why all the fuss? Who exactly do these higher speeds benefit?
My experience is that burning an audio CD copy at anything over 8X is risky business. Your mileage may vary. It makes no difference what drive or media I use. Burn an audio CD faster than 8X and some of the tracks might not work. Same with DVD's. Burn a DVD faster than 4X and there's a good chance the DVD copy won't be worth squat.
Even a friend of mine who was in the duplication business never burned at max speed, and he used "professional" duplicators!
I'm not exactly sure I can agree with all of that. I've been burning DVDs at 4x and now at 8x (the 16x discs arrived but I'm not out of 8x yet) and haven't seen a problem through about 700 or so of the little buggers. I realize that's not anywhere near the quantity a professional shop would do but I think it does go a bit beyond anecdotal evidence.
With audio CD's, the current thinking is that with current media and drives, the "sweet spot" to burn at is probably 32x or 40x. With DVD's, the jury is still out. Stay tuned, it will be interesting to see what happens to the burn quality at these breakneck speeds...
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