Recently installed a Plextor 716A and was wondering if "any" of the Plextools accessories are on by default. I have not installed Plextools yet and may not as I only burn Rima-Taiyo Yuden G02 8X @ 8X write speed.
I have not seen the first error of any kind on the discs on any of my DVD players.
The reason for the question is I decided to try one of the TY 8X discs at a write speed of 12X and noticed at the end (about 90%) I heard the drive slow down for the last 10%. This only happens at the 12X write speed. Does this sound like PR kicking in? I have only tried a few. I think it was Nero CD speed that claimed a 4x to 16x write speed for these discs but I know better than to write at 16X after reading so much here.
They play excellent on my standalones but I guess I should probably stick with writitng at 8X on 8X media for best quality.
As far as CD speed I can do a DQT 3 times on the same disc and get 3 totally different results. Either my Liteon reader is not up to par or the tests are meaningless as again, I've yet to see any problems even with a Quality score of 20. Usually it's one PIF spike that drops the score so bad. I test at 4X but it starts at about 2.2x and ends up at over 5x testing.
Sorry, I'm off topic. So could PR be on by default or are all defaults set to off on the drive without Plextools installed.
Thanks for any help or opinions.
Jonn

Absolutely.

You don't need PlexTools to change settings of your drive because by default the most important things are enabled (like PoweRec, BURN-Proof, AutoStrategy). But, that said, I do advise you to install PlexTools because it let's you enable things that are not enabled by default. For instance, SpeedRead DVD is disabled by default and when you only use your drive to rip DVD discs with, it's nice that is reads at full speed instead of being limited to 2x (default). Booktype is also disabled by default. This means that the drive doesn't "turn" DVD+R and DVD+R DL discs into DVD-ROM discs. I always have these settings enabled because generally speaking, DVD+R discs with their booktype set to DVD-ROM are more compatible with standalone DVD players.

Last but not least, PlexTools has a lot more interesting features that work great with your Plextor drive. One of these is the PI/PO tests to measure the disc quality of your burning DVDR/RW media, C1/C2 tests to do the same for CDR/RW media, DAE support, PoweRec, GigaRec, SecuRec, VaiRec settings, etc, etc.

G@M3FR3@K
Thanks very much for the answer and the helpful information.
As far as speed reed I've used the 3 second eject button trick since my 708A days but from much reading here I bought the ROM reader to use to rip. And I (so far) only use -R so the booktype does not apply.
What is most helpful is to know these settings are "ON" by default. I am suprised. So if I want to turn "off" AS or PR I must install and learn Plextools setup features. One other factor you bring to mind is Plextools would allow me to test DQ from my Plextor drive instead of from the LiteOn using CDSpeed.
I think I may get better scores as something about (my) LiteOn 167T just doesnt appear to be accurate with CDspeed.
Again, I appreciate your time and helpful information.
Regards,
Jonn

you can enable/disable PoweRec and Buffer Underrun Proof (BURN-PROOF) from within NERO and some other software suites. most all other unique Plex features must be controlled via Plextools however (like AS, GigaRec, etc.).

PlexTools is not a difficult application to learn. The only thing you have to keep in mind is that some settings are permanent while others are not. For instance, if you enable BitSetting or SpeedRead the setting will be stored in the drive, meaning that if you close PlexTools and/or reboot your computer, these settings will remain active. Other settings, like PoweRec and BURN-Proof can be disabled within PlexTools but once you close the software, these settings will be re-enabled again. This is because these settings are part of the Plextor's quality function and with them disabled, you can create coasters. Then there are a couple of settings like drpino said that can be controlled by other apps like Nero. The expert features though like SecuRec and GigaRec can only be controlled via PlexTools. Good luck and remember, if you have a question, you're welcome to ask for help here