PleXWriter PX-W4824A IDE CDR-W - Page 8

Writing Quality Tests

We used various media and burn them at the maximum writing speed of 48X, either with PoweRec on/off. Using Nero's (and PlexTools) feature, we recognized which media are permitted by the PoweRec system to be written at the 48X speed. For those media we burned discs either with PoweRec on/off, while for the rest only with PoweRec off. The main idea is to see how the drive performs either with good or with lower quality media. Plextor USA has published a media list over here. A bigger list with recommended and compatible media can be found at Plextor's Japan website. Lastly, Plextor Europe recently added a large list with supported CD-R and CD-RW media.

From our test results the following media can be written at:

- 48X speed (with PoweRec On):

• Mitsubishi Chemicals 80min 48X
• Mitsui 80min 40X (and probably 32X)
• Ciba Plasmon 80min 48X
• Prodisc 80min 40X
• CyberDrive 80min 48X
• Hitachi-Maxell 80min 40X

- 32X speed (with PoweRec On):

• Maxell 80min 32X
• SanyoDigital 80min 24x
• Taiyo Yuden 80min 32X
• Octron 80min 24X
• Prodisc 80min 16X
• Imation 80min 32X

The writing quality scores are illustrated in the following table:

The writing quality of the PX-W4824A was very good with many tested media from various manufacturers. The best results came from Mitsubishi Chemicals 48X certified media. The Plextor 48X media (by TaiyoYuden) performed very well, while the lowest time came from Ciba Plasmon 48X media (PoweRec off). Disabling "PoweRec" will permit 48X writing speed with most of the media with acceptable writing quality, but in some cases also with C2 errors. Make your own tests and decide if the inserted media can written at 48X with PoweRec disabled.

- C1 Error rate from Prodisc 80min 16X @ 48X (PoweRec Off)

- C1/C2 Error rate from Prodisc 80min 40X @ 48X (PoweRec Off)

- C1/C2 Error rate from TaiyoYudenc 80min 32X @ 48X (PoweRec Off)

In the following table you can see the manufacturing details of the media we used for our tests.