Don't know whether this is the right place to be, but this is unbelievable ...
read here:
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=138061 (http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=138061)
That's absurd.
That's absurd.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=301048"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Buy more Plextor or boycott? If this is real theire mud to me...
Don't know whether this is the right place to be, but this is unbelievable ...
This is a complete and utter absurd.
"Plextor gone insane ?" - it looks like this is the case...
That's absurd.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=301048"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
As absurd of paying 100 for a burner that everyone else sells for 50?
(Though their SATA burner is pretty cool even if it costs double what it should)
I have been a long time user of Plextor devices. If they follow this through I doubt I'll ever be buying another.
I've just emailed the register - hopefully they'll bring it up. Fingers crossed!
We buy a drive with "median" dvd write quality and we pay 2 times much than a similar drive.
The advantage are the extra tools.
Now they do a thing like that ...
(they have done the same to cd-dvd speed autor , they dont let im release a plextor version ...).
The question is that they want us to pay 40€ for plextools XL. after the extra price of a medium drive...
for me the choice is clear ... no more Plextor
I could understand Plextor's policy if they released a Linux version of Plextools XL ... but there is no Linux support (in terms of Plextor's tools) at all so can't understand why they threaten to sue a private person whose work will actually attract potential extra customers (die-hard Linux users, that is) ...
I just send an email regarding this topic to "heise.de" (a big german IT newssite), hopefully they will post some lines there. I think this cannot be overlooked!
Greetings.
edit: I just received an answer from heise.de telling me that they are trying to get an response from Plextor - although it's very unlikely this will happen today or tomorrow. At least there is a chance this will appear as news on the main site...
submitted at OSNN.net
Somebody could tipe Mike at Inq and ppl at Reg. One of them is sure to follow up.
Finally, slashdot just _loves_ these kinds of things as well
Heh,
I am a 1st time Plextor buyer. I bought PX-716A. Mainly for reliable CD ripping. I did QA test as described on the EAC site and compared with several of my other drives. Well maybe this drive good error correction, but its error concealment is a joke.
Also if there are too many errors it drops the extraction. My other dirt cheap drives will recover. It took me 10 trials to create a test disk which does not make this drive choke so that I can complete a test on it.
Plextools 2.23 is so buggy that is should not even leave R&D. For example I cannot load any settings I saved. Only way to save the settings to set 'save on exit', but again I cannot load (or save) the settings into a config file. Certain settings are never saved such as 'Use 1st Session Only". It is a joke. Also just searching on HA I found that they had a lot of serious bugs in previous Plextools. Clearly they have no professional SW developers and they QA dept must be a joke. I work for a large test instrument manufacturer company and I can tell you that stuff like this would not even make its way to the QA dept let alone leaving it.
Sometimes I really wonder why everybody considers this company so highly. I can tell you that all this bad experience plus this corporate bullying convinced me that I stick to Lite-on. They have Q1 Q2 tests etc as well with kprobe. Plextor can stuff themselves. I have a middle-aged guy with some money to burn, but Plextor will not see any of that any more.
Triza
They've probably gone mad. It's a major pain in the ass. They threaten useful volunteers. Shame on Plextor.
Heh,
I am a 1st time Plextor buyer. I bought PX-716A. Mainly for reliable CD ripping. I did QA test as described on the EAC site and compared with several of my other drives. Well maybe this drive good error correction, but its error concealment is a joke.
Also if there are too many errors it drops the extraction. My other dirt cheap drives will recover. It took me 10 trials to create a test disk which does not make this drive choke so that I can complete a test on it.
Plextools 2.23 is so buggy that is should not even leave R&D. For example I cannot load any settings I saved. Only way to save the settings to set 'save on exit', but again I cannot load (or save) the settings into a config file. Certain settings are never saved such as 'Use 1st Session Only". It is a joke. Also just searching on HA I found that they had a lot of serious bugs in previous Plextools. Clearly they have no professional SW developers and they QA dept must be a joke. I work for a large test instrument manufacturer company and I can tell you that stuff like this would not even make its way to the QA dept let alone leaving it.
Sometimes I really wonder why everybody considers this company so highly. I can tell you that all this bad experience plus this corporate bullying convinced me that I stick to Lite-on. They have Q1 Q2 tests etc as well with kprobe. Plextor can stuff themselves. I have a middle-aged guy with some money to burn, but Plextor will not see any of that any more.
Triza
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=301200"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
It would be kind of funny if a free linux version from independent developpers performs better then the real thing developped by plextor. Anyway, my previous experience with plextor didnt made me happy, and reading things like this doesnt really improve my opinion on that brand. I will never buy one again, but i already made this decision after my 2nd plextor died after 8 months
It would be kind of funny if a free linux version from independent developpers performs better then the real thing developped by plextor. Anyway, my previous experience with plextor didnt made me happy, and reading things like this doesnt really improve my opinion on that brand. I will never buy one again, but i already made this decision after my 2nd plextor died after 8 months
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=301217"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
In fact, Alexander Noe's Win32 App PxScan/PxView did work better than Plextools Pro's (and XL's) Q-Check ... it allows resizing, logarithmic scaling, PNG output, speed setting and consecutive scan runs for Sum-8 PIE and Sum-1 PIF, JitterBeta and TA ...
I guess it simply came too close to the commercial Plextools XL ...
In fact, Alexander Noe's Win32 App PxScan/PxView did work better than Plextools Pro's (and XL's) Q-Check (...) I guess it simply came too close to the commercial Plextools XL ...
You may be right...
And it's "interesting", that such a brand as Plextor decided to throw unfair accusations at people whose work could help Plextor's good name, instead of fixing and extending their own apllication's capabilities...
Which could have been done, considering an amount of time and a number of coders Plextor have at their command...
It's just unbelievable. And it shall get even more if someone from Plextor mentions they didn't expect such a reaction from the community as the present one.
I can just shake my head... It's just too nonsensical.
Good thing I never wasted my money on their overpriced hardware
Good thing I never wasted my money on their overpriced hardware
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=301294"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Exactly. I don't understand why these people want to make freeware software for an expensive piece of hardware when they could buy & do the same for cheaper hardware such as Lite-on drives.
I can tell you if I was spending my time developing a piece of software (even if it was just for my own use) & I got that kind of response I would stop developing it without a question.
After all you only help increase sales for them, why do it?
I thought about buying a Plextor drive for some time, they just figured out how to lose another customer. (Way to ruin your good name Plextor!)
P.S. get it while it's hot http://sourceforge.net/projects/pxscan/ (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pxscan/)
So who is second in quality behind plextor? Are they as bad?
Synaptic Line Noise,
I have various commitments in the last week or so, but I will publish my DAE quality tests in a weeks's time. That will look more objective. But my rant about plextools is pretty much the fact.
Triza
Good thing I never wasted my money on their overpriced hardware
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=301294"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Me too!
They can go bankrupt, 'cause I never liked them anyway...
>So who is second in quality behind plextor? Are they as bad?
Who is to say plextor is number 1? it is a myth that has been put about for so long (it was probabbly true in the early days of cd ripping, but things have come on now and cd ripping is a piece of cake for most cd drives). I have plextor drives and when the going gets tough there are other drives that perform better.
I have long known that plextor is a shit company, I once approached them asking for the plextor specific command to disable the first session, they refused and even though I reversed engineered it I couldn't be bothered implementing it, if they want everyone to use plextools only then fine by me, perhaps I would have got a legal letter. Like I said a shit company.
I have long known that plextor is a shit company, I once approached them asking for the plextor specific command to disable the first session, they refused and even though I reversed engineered it I couldn't be bothered implementing it, if they want everyone to use plextools only then fine by me, perhaps I would have got a legal letter.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=301780"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
You could have asked Andre Wiethoff about it ...
Anyway, LG Electronics refuses to give support (in terms of drive command set specs) to the Feurio! developers ... I guess every company has its drawbacks.
Considering most Plextor's buyers are enthusiasts or power users who probably use other operating systems than windows, legally threatening them because they're developing software they can use in other platforms (which could actually improve Plextor sales) is retarded. And all because they want to sell that Plextools XP-crap...
Anyway, I was saving my money to buy a Plextor DVD burner. Not gonna happen now. Would Lite-On be a good alternative to Plextor?
>You could have asked Andre Wiethoff about it ...
Indeed they supplied that info to him under an NDA, you would think those commands were security codes to Nuclear missiles
>Would Lite-On be a good alternative to Plextor?
I have found that lite-on make excellent cd ripping drives (obviously each model will be different).
I've got a rebranded liteon (sony) dvd-rom and i love it. No problems at all. My previous one from *cough* samsung failed after only 1 1/4 year.
An extra vote for liteon.
Ontopic:
I think if this news gets spread on the big news-sites and forum plextor might actually come back their decission.
I was very happy with my LITE-ON LTR-52246S CD burner until it refused to write any media after two years and a week or two. Although the warranty was void (since more than two years passed), LITE-ON was so kind to replace the broken device with a brand new SOHR-5238S + 2 years warranty.
The new device is not bad, but not "perfect" either. It seems to be a bit more picky when it comes to unknown CD-R media and its error correction seems worse than the LTR-52246S'. Another thing which I don't like (although it has nothing to do with quality whatsoever) is that the SOHR-5238S has only one green LED which indicates reading, writing and SMART-Burn - the old writer had a green, a red and an orage LED.
Overall, the LITE-ONs are decent drives with a good price. The support was very quick and friendly. According to c't tests, there are pretty much errors when writing at higher speeds, but this seems to happen with most drives tested. Even the PX-712A which I have now doesn't perform well with some media.
Would Lite-On be a good alternative to Plextor?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=301811"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
If you want reliable DVD/CD writing, stay away from LiteOn/Sony and go for NEC or BenQ ...
Since I would like to use that C1 C2 tests which requires either that damn Plextor with Plextools or alternatively Lite-On with Kprobe, so for me it is gonna be Lite-On. It is also very cheap.
Triza
I have long known that plextor is a shit company, I once approached them asking for the plextor specific command to disable the first session, they refused and even though I reversed engineered it I couldn't be bothered implementing it, if they want everyone to use plextools only then fine by me, perhaps I would have got a legal letter.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=301780")
You could have asked Andre Wiethoff about it ...
I'm sure Plextor people were really surprised to hear that they had an option
to "disable the first session"
Seriously, he really reverse engineered it himself. He did that during the few hours
between his post asking about the commands and my post giving them out, both
in this thread [a href="http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=17170]http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=17170[/url]
Gee, pretenders used to have better memories...
Since I would like to use that C1 C2 tests which requires either that damn Plextor with Plextools or alternatively Lite-On with Kprobe, so for me it is gonna be Lite-On. It is also very cheap.
Triza
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=301865"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
The BenQ models (in conjunction with CD/DVD Speed) do it as well ... with better writing quality at absolutely comparable pricing.
>Seriously, he really reverse engineered it himself.
Lets just say I had a working disable first session and it didn't come from your number dump (which looked like a sniff from EAC, and incidently from > 1 year ago memory appeared to be a little wrong...). I will not say any more on that subject.
Anything else you wish to drag up from the past?
> Lets just say I had a working disable first session and it didn't
> come from your number dump...
Of course you did. People who complain on the internet that something
is secret always know this secret, they just keep it for themselves and
feel for others.
> ...(which looked like a sniff from EAC,
Too bad, that's not the same command EAC uses.
> ... and incidently from > 1 year ago memory appeared to be a
> little wrong...). I will not say any more on that subject.
A little wrong really ? Why don't you try it and report back then ?
And why didn't you claim that it was wrong at the time ?
> Anything else you wish to drag up from the past?
Depends, do you have other funny claims or technical fantasies to post ?
>Of course you did.
There you go again...always doubting me (the other thread you questioned if I knew about CD ripping).
>Why don't you try it and report back then ?
I am not going to waste my time with you. If you wish to knock up an example program be my guest.
>And why didn't you claim that it was wrong at the time ?
See above, your numbers were just that a list of numbers.
From what I can tell (looking back at old threads) you like nothing better than to rattle up developers of CD rippers questioning what they know with claims that YOU are fully in the know. But then again without actually writing a CD ripping program of your own that makes you all talk...
Hi there!
For all who can read German here is the article I promised last week...
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/60048 (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/60048)
Long live the community and thanks to the heise.de team!
Greetings.
it's been covered on AfterDawn (http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6479.cfm) too.
Any opinions on Pioneer? I have been eyeing their DVD burners.
I don't know about pioneer but I recently bought a LG GSA-4163B and it is working good. It supports a wide variety of DVD media including dual layer and DVD-RAM.
See more info here (http://www.lge.com/catalog/prodmodeldetail?actType=search&page=1&modelCategoryId=CTG1000658&categoryId=CTG1000500&parentId=CTG1000439&modelPrefix=400000&globalCode=GSA-4082B&globalSuffix=000000&model=NOTHING).
It's pretty easy to find OEM models in Brazil and the cost is really fair, around BRL200.
Does not answer your original question but I hope this helps.
It's pretty easy to find OEM models in Brazil and the cost is really fair, around BRL200.
Does not answer your original question but I hope this helps.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=302553"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I have a DRD-8160B DVD reader from LG. Quality is so bad (problems reading DVDs recorded by a LG unit!) that I was planning to stay away from them as much as possible...
I also have one of those DVD readers, but to be honest I only used it to rip original DVDs and CDs. It never gave me any major headache.
Maybe it's just bad luck
Anyway, there are some tests at CDfreaks that you might want to check out.
For the record, they really don't seem happy about it. This one support staff bloke seemed rather stressed out. Poor guy.
How?
4 messages
James Cleveland <x@gmail.com> Sat, May 28, 2005 at 7:05 PM
Reply-To: James Cleveland <x@gmail.com>
To: x@plextor.com
How can you take full advantage of you burner on linux now you
destroyed pxlinux?
Seeing as the paid tools are windows only.
Give me a good, reasonable solution - or maybe it would be wise to
reconsider your attitude to thoughtlessly swiping freeware developers
from the face of the earth.
Thanks.
Tech Support <x@plextor.com> Tue, May 31, 2005 at 12:43 PM
To: James Cleveland <x@gmail.com>
James,
Thank you for contacting Plextor Support.
The issue with supporting Linux is that there are just too many distros
out there, and most distros have their own way of doing things.
Developing software for multiple operating systems: Windows, Mac OS, RPM
based distros such as Redhat, Mandrake (or whatever they are calling it
this week), SUSE, etc; Debian based distros such as Linspire, Debian,
Slackware, etc; or even distros like Gentoo that you compile from
scratch, and so on... and so forth, is just way too expensive for any
company to do.
My advice would be to try using the latest release of K3B with the
drive. While K3B may not give you the full benefit of the drive, you
will at least be able to get more use out of it than with most other
burning packages that have been written for Linux.
Thank you,
Keith.
Plextor America Support Team.
James Cleveland <x@gmail.com> Tue, May 31, 2005 at 12:57 PM
Reply-To: James Cleveland <x@gmail.com>
To: Tech Support <x@plextor.com>
I discovered yesterday that there was a great software package written
for use with a linux operating system, that allows linux users to get
the most out of their drive!
However, it seems that this package was legally threatened by plextor
itself, for "unfair business practices".
Why is the company not developing for an OS because it is "too
expensive", and then sending legal notices to those who do?
Thanks for the swift responce.
--
James Cleveland
Tech Support <x@plextor.com> Tue, May 31, 2005 at 1:23 PM
To: James Cleveland <x@gmail.com>
I will not get into the legal aspect of Plextor going after any company
for any reason... or not going after any company for any reason. That is
beyond the scope of my position, and quite frankly, beyond the scope of
my interest.
The bottom line is that Plextor does not support Linux. Nor is Plextor
obliged to support Linux in any way, shape or form.
As a Linux user, you should be aware that device driver support and
software support for the OS is sketchy at best. We all live with it, we
all deal with it, we all get by.
I use Debian at home and I use K3B. I can burn on anything that I throw
into any of my burners, and if any software vendor chooses not to
support Linux, my world doesn't stop spinning because of it. In short, I
deal with it and move on.
Thank you,
Keith.
Plextor America Support Team.
>Why don't you try it and report back then ?
I am not going to waste my time with you. If you wish to knock up an example program be my guest.
Funny, you wrote a ripper and you don't have a simple program skeleton
to send a single command ? And I guess you never heard of plscsi either ?
Google it ; it will allow you to test this sequence in 30 seconds and
see that it works. Anyway, it seems every time I explain that you're
wrong and suggest that you check it by yourself, you come up with the
same "I have no time" excuse. An excellent attitude towards learning,
keep going.
>And why didn't you claim that it was wrong at the time ?
See above, your numbers were just that a list of numbers.
Err yes, that's how people usually write CDBs. Is the command you
found yourself not made of bytes that you could have compared to mine ?
From what I can tell (looking back at old threads) you like nothing better than to rattle up developers of CD rippers questioning what they know with claims that YOU are fully in the know. But then again without actually writing a CD ripping program of your own that makes you all talk...
I spend 8 hours a day designing drives chipsets and writing firmware,
so I don't really feel like working on CD/DVD software in the evenings.
However, I still take the time to answer technical questions on various
forums and also to refute those who like to spread disinformation.
Just talk about what you really know and be correct, you will not
get any comment from me.
"
I will not get into the legal aspect of Plextor going after any company
for any reason... or not going after any company for any reason. That is
beyond the scope of my position, and quite frankly, beyond the scope of
my interest.
The bottom line is that Plextor does not support Linux. Nor is Plextor
obliged to support Linux in any way"
And niether are we obliged to support your drives with our[/B] money, (shape matter or form)pally![/b]
Today I have received a letter from a lawyer company based in Brussels, on behalf of Shinano Kenshi, the Japanese company that develops Plextools and Plextools Pro. They ask me to remove the project from the different locations. In their letter, they accuse me (and Alexander, who received another letter), of harming "their good name and fame" and of "unfair commercial practices".
So Pxscan was targeted too?
So Pxscan was targeted too?
what seems to be a responce (linked from the heise.de article): http://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~noe/Plextor/ (http://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~noe/Plextor/)
Additional note: pxlinux was supposed to be hosted on Sourceforge much earlier. However, a troll called beurktakeshima claimed that pxlinux violated intellectual property of Plextor, and he demanded that the project be rejected. Obviously, he does not want linux users to be able to use their Plextor DVD writers the same way as windows users. Another dicussion on this issue can be found there.
However, I personally do not see how his accusations could be true. It is highly unlikely that those commands are intellectual property of anyone.
>Why don't you try it and report back then ?
I am not going to waste my time with you. If you wish to knock up an example program be my guest.
Funny, you wrote a ripper and you don't have a simple program skeleton
to send a single command ? And I guess you never heard of plscsi either ?
Google it ; it will allow you to test this sequence in 30 seconds and
see that it works. Anyway, it seems every time I explain that you're
wrong and suggest that you check it by yourself, you come up with the
same "I have no time" excuse. An excellent attitude towards learning,
keep going.
>And why didn't you claim that it was wrong at the time ?
See above, your numbers were just that a list of numbers.
Err yes, that's how people usually write CDBs. Is the command you
found yourself not made of bytes that you could have compared to mine ?
From what I can tell (looking back at old threads) you like nothing better than to rattle up developers of CD rippers questioning what they know with claims that YOU are fully in the know. But then again without actually writing a CD ripping program of your own that makes you all talk...
I spend 8 hours a day designing drives chipsets and writing firmware,
so I don't really feel like working on CD/DVD software in the evenings.
However, I still take the time to answer technical questions on various
forums and also to refute those who like to spread disinformation.
Just talk about what you really know and be correct, you will not
get any comment from me.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=302598"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Look it easy to criticize other peoples work and claim how brilliant you are, if your so brilliant describe your work exactly, who do you write chipsets and drivers for? Anyone can hide behind a parapet and snipe. If andres work behind EAC is so bad, do a better job than he can, it just sounds likes the bad old L33t days when some peeps would have nothing else better to do than slag off someone elses work.
Before you ask I cant code and probably never will be able to but what I cant' stand is this l33t ist BS. As I say if can you its upto you to really prove it, if not put up and shut up and prove you claims [if you have for time for everyone else in here that is].
To everyone else out there i'm sorry for rising to the bait but i'm sick of people who give that l33t ist BS who think they know better than everyone else on earth.