PleXWriter PX-W4824U CDR-W - Page 6

CDR Tests

PleXWriter PX-W4824U offers a variety of recording speeds from 4X up to 48X, using the CLV, P-CAV or CAV recording technologies. The drive's various writing speeds and recording technologies are shown in the following screen.

Under the Nero software, user is able to select all recording speeds, regardless of the PoweRec setting. AudioCD authoring also permitted up to 48X.

- Checking maximum recording speed

After inserting a CD-R media, user can see which recording speed has been automatically selected by the PoweRec system in two ways:

a) through Nero. Under the drive's properties un-tick the "PoweRec Enabled" option and Nero will show the recommended writing speed of the disc. Of course it would be much easier to see that under the Writing tab where we select the writing speed...

b) through PlexTools. If you try to disable PoweRec function, PleXTools will prompt about this and will also indicate the maximum permitted recording speed. PleXTools "PoweRec Disable" function can be also used in cases you use other software that doesn't support disabling PoweRec function.

- Full CAV recording method

Using an 80min disc, we can see the drive's starting and ending recording speeds, according to the Nero CD Speed software. The drive starts writing at 21.10X and gradually reaches 48X at the end of an 80min disc. There is a difference with the PX-W4824A drive, since the PX-4824U didn't reached 48X writing speed in any of our tests, but only 45.55X. The average writing speed according to the Nero CD Speed is 36.02X, while the PX-W4824A had 36.79X:

- Recording Tests

The PX-W4824U needs 169secs in order to write 80:01:26mins. The PX-W4824A was slightly faster by 2seconds while the SONY CRX-210E1 is 13secs faster.

The above graph shows the recording times for all recording speeds, compared with the PX-W4824A and SONY CRX-210E1. As we can see, the PX-W4824U is very close to the PX-4824A. At the 24X, 32X and 40X recording speeds the three drives are very close, while at the 16X and 48X recording speeds, the SONY CRX-210E1 gets the first place with 13-15secs time difference.

Below is a table that shows the time differences compared to the 16X (CLV) recording speed for each drive. We also calculated the % difference for each recording speed (gain in recording time by %).

User will notice major performance difference compared to the 16X (CLV) at 40X and of course 48X recording speeds. The differences between 40X, 48X speeds are very small.

- Overburning Tests

The drive can overburn up to 94mins without any problems.

- CD-Text Results

The drive can read/write CD-Text without any problems.

- CloneCD Writing Tests

The CloneCD software reports that the drive supports the DAO-RAW feature. With the use of proper media, DAO-RAW writing can be performed up to 48X (CAV). CloneCD doesn't offer any option to disable PoweRec, but PleXTools can be used for that propose.

For checking the drive's EFM correction status, we used 3 different game titles with different SafeDisc 2 versions with the latest software patches installed. We used each drive as reader/writer at maximum reading/recording speed. Two discs were burned for each game. One disc burned with PadusDJ and the other with CloneCD (Amplify Weak Sectors On). The results are posted in the below table:

As you can see, the PX-W4824U cannot backup SafeDisc v2.50.021 ~ 2.80.010 builds. The Amplify Weak Sector function will produce backups that will work only in other CD-RW drives (with hide CD-R media function), not in CD/DVD-ROMs.