Plextor DVD burner aims to support all DVD standards

Plextor today announced a new drive that it says will burn DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW and CD-R/RW disks, helping to end consumer questions regarding which DVD recording format will work with existing or future standards.

The PX-708A, available in August for $299, supports 8x-speed DVD+R and 4x-speed DVD-R writing; 4x-speed DVD+RW and 2x-speed DVD-RW re-writing; and 12x-speed DVD reading (DVD-ROM). The internal drive (ATA/ATAPI-5 interface) also can record CD-R disks (40x-speed) , and perform 24x-speed CD-RW re-writing, and 40x-speed CD-ROM reading.

The drive includes a 2M-byte data buffer, and has burst data transfer rates of 33M bytes/sec., Plextor said. This lets users burn a 4.7G-byte DVD+R disk in approximately 8 minutes, the company added. The drive supports Windows machines (98SE, ME, 2000 or XP operating systems). Bundled with the drive is software from Roxio (Easy CD, DVD Creator 6.1 Basic DVD Edition, PhotoSuite 5 SE). Also included is a 30-day trial version of Dantz Retrospect backup software.