I know these two drives are based on the exact same chipset. It just seems there have been several reviews with the two, (Anandtech and CDRinfo for example) and the Plextor PX-740A seems to produce way better quality discs than the Benq 1640. The total errors on the Plextor tend to be almost a third less than the BenQ. I am just curious why someone might choose one over the other. Right now I would imagine the quality would outweigh the price. Comments?

They are the same exact drive with different firmware. You can flash a BenQ 1640 to a Plextor 740A and vice versa.

BenQ 1640= cheaper in price

Hi
The answer is f/w
Plextor so far have released 101 f/w
BenQ so far have released BSGB, BSHB, BSIB & BSJB
With the original f/w Plextor may well have had the edge
BenQ with it's latest f/w is possibly taken into the lead for the time being at least
Add to this that you can use MCSE (Media Code Speed Edit) BenQ would seem to be the better investment
Should the gap between the two increase significantly you can always cross flash
Oh! &last but not least BenQ supports bitsetting
Oh! of course BenQ cheaper

Bitsetting is supported by the 740.

Personally I'm all for the 1640

Hi

eric93se

I've been told
True full bitsetting can only be achieved with the Plextor 740 by use of BenQ software
I should have made that clearer
The point being about manufacturer's support
Although Nero should do this I don't know for sure as I swapped my 740 for 1640 as I felt the BenQ was / will be the better option

I've just flashed my BenQ 1640 to a Plextor 740A. I'm going to burn 5 CD Speed test discs of different types on the Plextor (RICOH JPN R01, CMC MAG E01, MCC 003, MCC 004, and YUDEN000-T02) and then 5 with the drive as a BenQ. This sounds like a interesting test of the Plextor firmware. I'll post back with my results. I had no problems flashing to Plextor and then back to Benq firmware using DWFlash and a CVT.

It's a brilliant idea to put to the test, Dalen Quaice.

While you're at it try finding out how Autostrategy would work, which would be a preview of the upcoming Solid Burn in the Benq's.

Here are scans of 5 discs I burned with my BenQ drive as a Plextor 740A v. 1.01

One thing to note is that Plextor's version of WOPC is always on and can't be deactivated. I was also unable to verify that autostrategy was either on or off - I don't think it is supported in this firmware yet as the speed scans looked virtually identical to the BenQ with WOPC on. I created data discs using Nero CD/DVD Speed. However, as a Plextor the drive does not support Disc Quality check, so the scans were created using the BenQ1640 with BSIB.

Overall, I had no issues with my drive as a Plextor and the burns went very smoothly.

MCC 004 @ 12x, RICOH @ 4x, MCC 003 @ 8x, CMC @ 8x, YUDEN @ 8x.

Here are 5 discs created with BenQ 1640 using BSIB firmware. I created data discs using Nero CD/DVD Speed. WOPC was turned on.

MCC 004 @ 12x, RICOH @ 4x, MCC 003 @ 8x, CMC @ 8x, YUDEN @ 8x

@Dalen Quaice
Good job!

Do you have the disc quality scan of the same media burned by BSIB?

I am interested to see if they have great differences.

One more questio, Is BSIB better than BSJB ? It seems BSIB has been pulled away from official website.

I like BSIB better than BSJB, but I only burn +R discs. I get spikes at about 3.5gb into a disc with BSJB which are annoying. The BSIB burns follow the Plextor scans in the next post. You may have missed these when scrolling down.

Does the Plextor Firmware support overspeeding. If so, what media is overspeeded and can the firmware just be downloaded from the Plextor website.

Hi
Excellent
I had similar idea only have MCC 03 & MCC 004
Using BSJB you can see spike that you refer to

As far as I can tell, the Plextor firmware does not overspeed on any media that I have tried so far. I tried opening the firmware in MediaCodeSpeedEdit to view all the codes, but that did not work. Yes, I got a CVT file from Plextor's site that I flashed with DWFlash instead of their own PXFirm.exe --

@Dalen Quaice, Thankyou for your reply. I have modified my BSJB with MCSE to overspeed Yuden=T02-000 with Yuden000-T-03 and MCC003 with 004 and I have tried other that work. Maxell 002 at Maxell 003. Verb 8x- with Verb 16x- all work but I cannot get better than 11x with any of them. The avg speed is about 8.50X for a full 4.3 gig.

Hi
I did same & have now PXFirm.exe
Can't say there's any difference

Yes, that's the spike.

The media support of the Plextor 1.01 firmware is between BSHB and BSIB. BSIB adds one +R9 and five +R media codes, all other entries use identical speeds.

Can you make MediaCodeSpeedEdit work with the Plextor firmware?

Currently I do not want to release the Plextor support, and I see no need to do so. The Plextor firmware is just an older Benq firmware, having some features disabled. The +R tables of 1.01 and BSHB use identical strategy data, just as an example.

ala42

Do you by chance know how the Plextor 740 would have Auto Strategy activated ?
Is it only by means of Plextools with their current firmware ?

It would be an indication of how Qsuite 2.0 will interact with the upcoming BSKB.

Hi
Plextor 740 only has limited use of Plextools
It also has limited use of QSuite
740 uses WOPC

nice posts Dalen Quaice.
looks like benq needs to do some work to fix that spike in BSJB. i guess right now, v1.01>BSIB.

but also having trouble getting older benq fw's. they seem to have password protected the 1640 download center in benq's global webpage

Hi
Try here