I am getting a second as well. The Plexor I am looking at gets higher read scores than my BenQ - should compliment each other nicely.
ok, good advice there. what is everyone's advice on the better DVD burner. The Benq 1640 or the Plextor 716a? Has anybody tried both dvd burners? I am just curious.
I have had my Plextor 716A for about 6 or 7 months now, and I like it. My second choice would be the BenQ.
I have a DW1640 and a PX712A .. not really comparable, but each is an excellent drive I use the DW1640 for DVD burning while the PX712A is in another system doing time burning CDs
Catfreak, where is your 1640 from and when was it made? I just got mine delivered tonight and it appears it was made in August in China. I haven't hooked it up yet but does anyone else have a Benq 1640 made in August in china? Is it working well?
I am too lazy to see whether I posted this here previously, but this is a good comparison of the the Plexor & BenQ, as well as everyone else. Its what I used to make my decision. http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?ArticleId=14511
Since I already had several DVD writers and none of them could read the last 2 discs of my Futurama box set of the last season, I decided to get the BenQ partially based on it's 5 star rating by CD Freaks in error correction (it also was Editor's Choice in several tests) .. Out of all of my drives, including a Plextor PX712A, it is the ONLY drive that will read these discs! Also, it is the only writer that would write the +R DL discs at 8x (and produce great scans!) daddyjar ... I purchased my drive from NewEgg .. it was made in July by the big red machine we call China
I have a BenQ1640 Made in China August 2005 BSHB. Works great. I have it set as master and crossflashed to BEFB UDMA 4 Burst Rate 35mbs. Great drive.
i am in minnesota on a business trip and am not home yet to hook up my benq burner. i will be home next week to do so. I was wondering something though. I also bought mine from newegg and it only came with a Nero disk. How do I download the latest firmware and the qsuite software?
You can get it from the BenQ site. http://support.benq.com/front/BenqM...langu=null&ops=2756&GenMenu=&RootId=undefined
I have a question for everyone. I just got my benq 1640 drive installed and it appears that it is flashware version BSJB. Is this a good flashware version? Or do I need to install the updated flashware version BSLB on the Benq website? If anyone could respond that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys!
I'm using firmware version BSJB in my benq 1640 drive and the burns are great on the media Im using CMC MAGEO1 and TDK TTGO2 if BSJB works well on the media your using keep it.
I just got my new benq 1640 wednesday and it is an awesome burner.Drive only,no nero,cable,not even the purty benq purple box! I updated to the BSLB FW,downloaded qsuite to booktype my plus format yuden000-T02 to dvd-rom and she performs as well as both my benq 1620s! Not sure of the date on the drive,I put that baby in under 3 minutes and started playing around with it.Even the dual layer verbatim +2.4x are looking sweet! Excellent PIE/PIF scans using dvdinfopro. Catfreak, I take it your benq 1640 is a great reader? My benqs have trouble reading one of my buddy's NEC 2510 dash ty backups,but my litey will read them. That's the only thing I didn't like about the 1620s,not so strong of readers.
My DW1640 doesn't like the -R stuff too much ... But as far as reading pressed discs that are scratched, it's much better thsn anything else I have. You didn't get Nero with your drive? Wow! I got Nero and was able to upfate it to 6.6.0.16 for free ...
does anyone know if updating the flash of the drive will affect the speed the burner reads and writes? I am also confused on what booktyping means and how it works? anybody out there that doesn't mind answering this for me?
All I got in last weekend's newegg.com special was: Benq-1640,shipping receipt/styrophome popcorn/and 1 brown box, LOL Heck,my oem nero6 works perfect,so does the new drive.Didn't need that or the 80 wire cable. I've got a couple of original dvd's that my other drives can't read.Will try in the new 1640.
what the firmware updates accomplish: BSJB-Improve the writing performance for low speed & DVD+R DL media. BSKB-1. Improved writing quality for DVD+R & DVD-R media. 2. Added SolidBurn Technology. 3. Added Overspeed ability. (Enable via QSuite 2.0) •Note: QSuite 2.0 can be downloaded from http://support.benq.com/files/Storage/Software/QSuite/QSuite v2.0 Setup.zip BSLB-1. Modified the strategy of SolidBurn for DVD-R media. 2. Modified the writing strategy for 8x DVD+RW media.
Thanks Cat Freak for the update on what each flash update does for the burner capabilities. Can you answer me on what book typing means and how to it works in qsuite? i appreciate your assistance as I am a fairly new guy to the burning technology.
A DVD has information that is written at the very beginning (center) of the disc. This information identifies the disc type among other things. When you 'booktype' a DVD+R, DVD+RW or DVD+R DL disc, what you are doing is altering this information so that anything that reads the disc, sees it as a DVD-ROM instead of a +R, +RW or +R DL disc. This increases disc/reader compatibility to virtually 100% This is also one of the reasons that more and more people are using + format discs as opposed to - format discs.
Ok, that sounds good. now how do i change it in qsuite so that all the +R media will "read" as dvd-rom?
