Plextor PlexTools

On the previous page we already saw that the PlexTools version can give you a lot of information on your Plextor drive and besides that we already briefly mentioned some of the advanced settings you can enable or disable in the ‘Drive Settings’ screen:

The ‘Disc Velocity’ options aren’t that interesting since these settings were already present in the previous PlexTools versions. Below that we can see some more interesting settings in the ‘Advanced Settings’ screen. Most options are pretty self-explaining but some options are new. Please note that some options are greyed out in the screenshot above since these options are intended for the new Plextor PX-W4824A and PX-W4824TU drives which we currently do not have yet.

• Disable PoweRec:
  When you disable PoweRec the 48X Plextor drive will not optimise the burn speed for the used media and will burn all discs at the maximum speed of 48X. Of course, when your media cannot handle these speeds, write errors can occur so it’s not recommended to use this option unless you’re sure your media can handle 48X.

The ‘Enable DMA’, ‘Enable Single Session’ and ‘Hide CD-R Media’ options could already be found in previous PlexTools versions but the ‘SpeedRead’ option is new:

• Enable SpeedRead:
  If you’ve read our announcement on the upcoming Plextor drive you will have noticed that it, by default, will be set to 40X reading and not to its maximum read speed of 48X. With this ‘Enabled SpeedRead’ option you can set the Plextor 48X drive to its maximum read speed:

Some people have already asked the question why Plextor did this. They’re asking why the drive is not limited when it comes to writing at 48X. Well this is because reading at 48X is not the same as 48X:

“…Even though it would seem logical to expect the same maximum speed for reading and writing, and if not equal to expect a higher read speed, this is not always the case for Plextor recorders. The reason for this comes from the different characteristics of the media that is typically used in both cases.

Spinning such discs at high speed may introduce vibration, irritating noise, or even read errors that will cause the drive to spin down. Even worse, the micro-cracks caused by certain drives’ clamping mechanisms could grow in an avalanche-like way under influence of temperature, pressure and high rotation speed, causing the disc to scatter or “explode” in many pieces. Additionally, thorough tests have shown that a large increase of rotational speed will reduce the lifetime of the spindle motor by 25% while at the same time the internal drive temperature will rise, which will affect the stable operation of all components. The effects of a continuous spin at high speed for reading are much worse than the limited time (<3 minutes) it takes to write a disc at this speed…”

So there you have it: the reason why Plextor has limited the read speed of their new recorder by default. When you enable the SpeedRead option the drive will be able to reach 48X with stamped and recorded CD’s only. When reading audio discs the speed will still be limited to 40X reading because audio discs have poorer error correction and will suffer too many read errors. This applies to CD-RW media as well because of the different characteristics, like lower reflectivity.

As a final precaution, the tray- and drive bezel of the Plextor PX-W4824A have been partially redesigned and reinforced to prevent any particles of an exploding disc escaping from the drive.

More New Features:

So far some of the ’smaller’ new features found in this new PlexTools version. As you will have understand the new features mentioned above were intended for the latest Plextor PX-W4824A and PX-W4824TU drives but now for some new features you can use with every Plextor drive. In short the biggest changes in this new PlexTools version are support for freedb and a special ‘DAE Error Recovery’ system.

freedb is a database to look up CD information using the internet. This is done by a client (a freedb aware application) which calculates a (nearly) unique disc ID for a CD in your CD-ROM and then queries the database. As a result, the client displays the artist, CD-title, tracklist and some additional information. The information can then be displayed in the PlexTools Audio CD Player or, more interesting, the text can be burned as CD-Text when you burn an audio CD using the PlexTools software.

And besides freedb support the PlexTools software now offers some advanced options to correct errors occurring during the extraction of scratched or dirty audio discs. When extracting the audio data it will be corrected for possible errors ensuring that the extracted audio is of perfect quality. On the next page we’ve done some tests with this new feature to see if the PlexTools software can indeed extract a scratched audio disc.