Im looking to buy a DVD burner and looking at these 2 models. I am leaning towards the 708a since it costs less and comes with a rebate. The 712a however is tempting.

Is the 708a becoming obsolete since the 712a came out?? Am I gonna be missing out a lot if I get the 708a and not the 712a?

SkYLiNe,

I have owned the PX-708A since January of this year. I have yet to find 8X DVD+R media that is made by recommended manufacturers in Toronto Canada. I would suggest that you depending on your setup and needs that you consider the PX-708A over the PX-712A. 12X media will not be available in Canada until the autumn and standalone DVD compatibility will be quite poor at 12X burning speeds. I have found to achieve maximum compatibility with standalone DVD players, recommended DVD-R discs burned at 4X work the best. You should also take into consideration that 12X burning speed will be short lived as the fastest burning speed attainable, 16X burning speed is the technical limit in DVD burning speed. 16X drives from Plextor and other top line manufacturers will be available in the autumn as well.

16x is the absolute threshhold?

The 712A has more feature's then only the faster burning speed of the 708A, but you will have to look into them to see if any will benefit you and what you plan on doing.

I have both, and I love them both, No problem finding 8X in Michigan.

The one thing I don't understand about the 16X that is comming out, I read that the 16X will burn a full 4.7 disk in 6min, that's the same amount of time for the 12X

Im planning to burn mostly data (backups, large files etc.) and occasionally some DVDs. Im not planning to do anything fancy yet.

You will save about 2 minutes per DVD with PX712A. Since you will
not be burning lots of DVDs

go with PX712A if money is not an issue

otherwise get a PX708A and save some money

Why do you think 16X is the absolue threshold?
Please explain

Phantagarow,

16X is considered to be the technical limit for conventional Red Laser DVD writers, due to the error correction and sustained data transfer speeds required. Even though current SATA, Ultra ATA 100, Ultra ATA 66 and 33 connections are not being used to full potential 16X burning and reading speed is considered to be the limit with the current red laser technology. If you recall Kenwood released a 72X True -X CD-Rom drive a few years ago, there were numerous complaints about an inability to read a disc past 52X without overwhelming the error correction of the drive. The complaints eventually caused a recall of all Kenwood 72X CD-Rom drives.

When considering which DVD burner to purchase, the potential buyer should always be aware that the slower burning speeds i.e.4X, will allow greater compatibility with standalone DVD players.

not neccesarily, if you scan your burns, and have low error/jitter rates a 8x or even a 12x burn will play just as well as a 4x on a standalone dvd player. now if the burn isnt that good then i could see a issue but burning speed has nothing to do with readability..its errors