As suggested by Forum member "crossg" (and some other members ) I have created this sticky thread where you can post your Suggestions and Feedback for Plextor. I think it's a good idea so let's see if it works (if it doesn't, I will close this thread again). When you want to reply to this thread, please follow these rules. If your post fails to meet these rules it will be deleted without warning or notification!

1. No flaming, complaints and/or praises. Only serious feedback and suggestions.
2. When posting feedback and/or suggestions, be detailed. Comments like "improve the firmware" are useles.
3. No questions, use the main Plextor forum for questions.
4. Again, no flaming! If you have a problem with your Plextor drive, post in the Plextor Forum. If you have a problem with someone's post, contact me.

Rules may be added and/or changed later.

Here is a bunch of firmware bugs which could be fixed:

- The PX-712A cannot read the booktype of (recorded and finalized) Dual/DoubleLayer media. It always reports DVD-ROM as booktype. On DVD-R DL, it can't even read the manufacturer ID
- The PX-712A claims, via mode page 2A as well as via get_performance, that it could write 4x DVD-RW media at 1x speed (which it can't)
- When using Ultraspeed+CD-RW media in the PX-712/716, PowerREC suggests 0x as recommended speed. This behaviour is also firmware-related.

--Correct the PIE avg. reporting (sum 8 calculation) to accurately report the same way as in previous version 2.23. There was some huge change, where the previous 10 max PIE value that would have meant around a 0.07-0.10 avg. in version 2.23 is now 1.03+ avg. in 2.24

--Include calculations to show both beta and jitter percentages in the beta/jitter scan. Also include explanations for same in Plextools User Manual.

--Improve the MCC003 (Verbatim 8x DVD+R) write strategy. When MCC003 is burned on other burners like a Benq1620, the PIE and PIF error rates are much lower for this mid (meaning at least some other burners have developed and tested it more). When burned at 12x (when Media Quality Check 'judges the media good'), there are huge spikes in the middle of the burn that PoweRec does not 'kick in' for to help prevent (although that is its stated function).

--Improve Yuden000t02-00 (Fuji 8x DVD+R MIJ) write strategy. PoweRec incorrectly states this mid can be burned at 16x, which has not proven true. (Only the media quality check shows its max burn is 12x safely). This is another case where PoweRec does not properly monitor the error rates, nor lowers the speed accordingly; it allows huge error spikes in the burn after the 2 gb point (on a 16x burn) up to 240 or 280 before it ever lowers the burn speed to help bring PIE levels down to around 10, and what is normal PIE on burns from this mid. Therefore, increase the number of times PoweRec checks for burn quality during a burn; right now, it only activates after the "damage is done" and that's too late.

Wishlist:

Add the possibility to use Autostrategy even if there is a strategy for the media provided in the Firmware. Sometimes it seems that quality variations between different batches of the same media are so big that the regular writing strategy fails to deliver proper burns or at least only delivers very poor results. It would be nice if there was an 'override' switch so one could try Autostrategy in such situations.

(Personal experience: Back with FW 1.03 on the 716a TDK +R8x seemed to produce good results with Autostrategy, whereas the later introduced strategies for 8x and then 12x for this media got me less good results, IMHO)

Improve write Strategies (716a):

For some +R 16x Media (Sony D21, for example) there is no true 16x CAV strategy implemented. A 6-14, 15.8-16x "Z-CAV" Strategy ist used instead. The 'jump' in speed at the 4GB mark has a negative effect on the burn result. Please provide a full 16x CAV strategy.

For Philipps C16 01 +R 16x Media (possibly for other too) only strategies for 12x exist. Judging from my scans these Philipps media work fine @12x. Please provide support for 16x.

Documentation:

Plextor offers extended Q-Check features in its Premium, 712a and 716a drives. However documentation for these features is sketchy at best. Especially users who do not have a technical or IT background will find explanations and descriptions given in Plextools Help and Manual and in these files

http://www.plextor.com/english/news/...itepaper-6.pdf
and
http://www.plextor.com/english/suppo...o/HT00006.html

as complicated and not very informative (i.e. not understandable). This will lead to a lot of questions and even to the belief that the just bought drive is maybe defective (there are plenty of examples of just that situation in this forum).

Please provide a easy to read documentation that explains Q-Check features. Provide absolute values of results that are to be respected. Provide example scans of good, average and bad results for each testing method.

IMHO the above "premium-px-712-whitepaper-6.pdf" document is a good start already and only needs completion.

One suggestion from my side: add DVD-RAM reading and writing support to the next drive(s).

Stop building your Drives in China. Have them built in the US, Canada, or Europe. Sure your going to have to charge more for them but at least we can be assured they will be assembled correctly and tested.
Why do I ask this? Well I use to work for a manufacture that build AC/DC motor drive controllers. The company decided to save a few bucks and have alot of the equipment built in mexico. Turns out all the units built in mexico was assembled wrong and not correctly tested either. The company lost tens of millions of dollars having to recall all the drive units. Have them shipped back to the US and have them reworked and tested.
Now I'm not meaning to bash Mexico or China saying they can't do efficient work. I just know that the way things are assembled in China or Mexico does not follow the same high standards we have in the US, Canada, or Europe.
ISO9000 for example as a standard of Quality. The company I work at now is ISO9000 certified. Are the ones in Mexico or China ISO9000 Certified?
Just voicing my opinion.
BrianS

Suggestion:

- PX-716A: Include the possibility to burn Highspeed (10x) CD-RWs at 4x speed.

Background:

My old Teac CD-W524E could do that with Intenso 4x-12x 700MB CD-RWs (Sentinel type 4). That resulted in much lower PIE rates. The PX-716A only offers 10x for the same discs and burns worse than the Teac at 4x.
When I need low PIE rates, I would like to be able to get them.

previous plextor drives were built in japan,i believe.i wish the newer drives will have a build quality like my old W4012A.i dont care were is plextor going to build them but please build them like you used to do,tough and long lasting drives.

Regarding the continuing bugs in Plextools DAE, specifically involving LAME at ABR.

Due to the appropriateness of this new thread, and for organization's sake and Plextor's convenience, I'm reposting a certain section of of this post
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...4&postcount=19
from this thread
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=137184

The thread mentioned above contains a chronicle of some past DAE bugs and fixes on the Part of Plextor Plextools Dev.


PlexTools Professional V2.24b released on 13 July 2005
* Bug Fix: DAE: if ABR is selected in LAME preferences and the 'Average Bitrate' is set to a lower value than the 'Minimum Bitrate', a warning is given when the window is closed.


The warning is now gone, but there are still problems with ABR.

· If the VBR Minimum Bitrate (despite being grayed-out) is higher than the ABR Bitrate, Plextools will encode at the higher VBR Minimum Bitrate with the sound quality of the [lower] ABR bitrate (worst of both worlds).

· If the VBR Minimum Bitrate is lower than the ABR Bitrate, Plextools will encode at the [higher] ABR bitrate, with the sound quality of the [lower] Minimum Bitrate (again, the worst of both worlds, just reversed).


· There is also a new error: "Cannot Initialize L.A.M.E.".
Here is one way to reproduce it:

Go to LAME VBR settings:
- max 224kbps
- min 320kbps

switch to ABR settings (VBR Settings will gray-out)...
Constant/Average Bitrate setting:
- 56kbps [32kbps up to 64kbps]

Try to rip [gives error].

80kbps and above here gives no error.

I have produced this error with a "Minimum Bitrate" as low as 192kbps and an ABR/CBR Bitrate as high as 64kbps. I do not know how many other configurations it can be had in.


I also had some instability... Plextools crashed on me twice in the hour or two of doing those tests.

716a:
Improve writing strategy with MCC003

Even i got a new RMA drive form my dealer, which TLA verson change form 0203 to 0306. i still got high spike in the end of the media (>3.5GB), which i change to other media like ttg02, tyg02 even mcc004 would not result in such high spikes in near end disc position.

Take as much time as it needs to properly develop your drives. Do not put them on market in an unfinished state (as with 716 TLA 00xx). It is no problem to wait one more month for a new product if the product is functioning properly.

Namoh raised a good point, support DVD-RAM (eventually also Lightscribe) and don't do the same as with the 6xxA (don't recall if it was 635...) that was sold just in Japan.

As that one seemed to be like the Panasonic, Plextor could provide cartridge support, not just bare discs, and sell it worldwide as DVD-RAM seems to be increasing at mom - appart from LG, we now have Pioneer, NEC and Hp also raised the possibility.

So maybe not a bad bet to seel it at the global market level*

better 16x media support (e.g. PHILIPSC16) and overall write quality...

While improved write strategies for dependable, stable and repeatable burns are probably most crucial to the majority of customers:

1) Consider making the diagnostic self-test workable via a software switch without having to disconnect the IDE cable and set jumpers on the drive.

2) Consider keeping your customers informed of the RMA process with automatically sent out emails and shipping tracking numbers. I am assuming you record the arrival, work performed and shipping data already by computer. This data could be used to formulate the automatic emails with usable and reassuring information for the customer.

I would think both of these suggestions would save you money by shortening the number of and time spent by your employees dealing with customers' toll free calls to and manually answered emails by technical support.

I would like to have 716A write speed for verbatim datalifeplus 48x CD-R fixed. currently it is only 32x, which is annoying considering most other drives write these discs at 52x!

I have registered my plextor drives (serial number etc) with plextor europe and never received any feedback.... whats the point of product registration?

no company provides "feedback" when you register a product...save for a "thanks for registering" email or similar...what are you expecting?

registration is for warranty and marketing purposes...

That is what i'm expecting and something i never got.

I ticked the following two boxes when registering:
2 years and i've not received a single email about new products?
I registered again 5 min ago and can confirm there is no automated response.

I know that registration is of irrelevant importance to me, but if they offer a service (in this case the notification or news emails,) then they should carry through with it. I think Plextor need to fix this service.

Suggestion for Plextools:

Include reading of MP3 ID3 V2 info for CD Text when creating Audio CD's. Currently only ID3 V1 tags are used, which results in the truncation of long titles.

I wonder why nobody mentions anything about scanning PIE and PIF at once and/or allowing Nero CD-DVD Speed to do the job.

I heard that Plextor has been blocking Nero CD-DVD Speed because they couldn't do PIE and PIF at once in their PlexTools like in Nero CD-DVD Speed yet? Maybe because they have plan to introduce that feature in the paid version of PlexTools?

Plextools XL does that already.

Oops! I didn't know that. Thanks.

That doesn't seem to be possible. I've just installed it hoping to try that feature. Another member has confirmed in other thread.

Ummm... if it needs to be stated yet again, it's time to offer a LAME switch field within Plextools Pro. This switch field would have priority over any selected radio buttons. The switch field would be very similar to Plextools Pro's "Filename Construction" field under Filename Options in DAE. This should've been added 2 years ago at least. Heck, the MP3 craze was 4 years ago at its peak. Plextools Pro will not be considered a serious Digital Audio Extraction tool until this is fulfilled. This will continue to be an embarrassment for the power and sophistication or simple ability of Plextools until a switch field is added. If you need to use lame.exe for this instead of lame_enc.dll, or find a creative way to fulfill this, I'm sure users will be more than happy to oblige. It is time. Please include this in the next release.