Plextor 40/12/40A

Author : Wayne Date : 18th March 2002

...Product	Plextor 40/12/40A
...Manufacturer	Plextor
...Supplier	Plextor
...Price	£149.99 @ Jungle

 

 

 

PlexTools :

On the driver CD you'll also find Plextor's PlexTools utility. This useful piece of software allows for simple one-stop configuration and feature access without having to trawl through a myriad of different utilities. Here's a quick look at some of the main features.

General Information :

This covers everything from your jumper settings to the firmware version. As you can see the buffer capacity is 4MB.

Drive Settings :

From here you get to configure speed settings, spindown time, VariRec levels, BURN-Proof, DMA, Auto Insert Notification and output volume.

Drive Information :

Displays everything from read and write speeds to firmware versions and even has a facility to check for later firmware revisions online.

CD Info :

Displays information for the CD currently in the drive.

Multimedia Player :

Multimedia Player uses the MCI drivers installed on your system to play Audio tracks and other types of Multimedia files. Some of the options are :

• Media Files: can play the most common audio and video files available.
  
• Video for Windows: plays AVI Video files.
  
• Sound: plays audio WAV files as recorded by Digital Audio Extraction tools.
  
• MIDI sequencer: plays MIDI files.
  
• CD Audio: plays Audio CD’s (including audio tracks on Mixed mode, Enhanced and CD Extra discs).
  
• MP3 Files: plays compressed audio files.
  
• Movie Files: plays Quicktime?? Movie files.
  
• MPEG Files: plays Video files that are compressed using the MPEG specification (e.g. VideoCD).
  

Digital Audio Extraction :

This not only allows you to extract digital audio from your audio CD it also allows the extraction of multiple tracks at once. Error detection can be enabled/disabled from this pane. Tracks can be extracted to PCM (Wave), MP3 (Windows encoder) or MP3 (L.A.M.E) using the free encoder which will need downloading if you don't have it.

Audio CD Maker :

Allows you to create your own audio CDs by dragging and dropping 44.1KHz, 16 bit stereo *.wav files. For more flexibility you can do the same thing using the supplied Nero software including auto-conversion of MP3 files.

CD Copy :

All the basic settings are here to allow quick and easy CD copying. Source and destination speeds can be set directly and on the fly copies (directly from one drive to another) can also be enabled. Preferences allows you to copy CD+G information if available and also 'Include UPC/EAN and ISRC'. You can also enable overburning, leave the copy open (not finalised) and set features like ejecting the disk on completion.

CD-RW Functions :

This function is only available on the Plextor ReWriters (PX-Wxxxx) in combination with a CD-RW disk. There are two ways of erasing a CD-RW.

Quick Erase will only erase the table of contents (TOC); data will remain on the disc, but becomes inaccessible. This takes about 2 minutes at 2X writing speed.
Full Erase will erase everything on the disk. This can take up to 40 minutes at 2X writing but actually took a shade over 6 minutes in testing.

CD Test :

This simply scans the inserted CD for read errors.

This simple utility is worth its weight in gold and makes setting things to your liking an absolute doddle. Okay so some of the very advanced options are missing but it's an ideal inclusion for the vast majority of users and a great tool for troubleshooting.

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