Plextor Premium and Hoster

[dscheerder]

A customer of mine has purchased two Plextor Premium 52x32x52x writers for two computer they are using with your software called Hoster, running version 2.124 according to them. The customer is complaining that when they use the CDRW, any tracks past the 15th are corrupted. More specifically, as the words are sung, and the line of lyrics is finished, it is not being cleared properly and there are distortions as the new lines of lyrics are put up. It ends up being a garbled mess. The first 15 tracks always work well. The Plextor units support the CD + G format, and are listed as recommended drives by your company. The customer has tried different brands of media to no avail. The customer also has an older Plextor 48x24x48x CDRW which is working fine. I was hoping you could provide a suggestion or two as to what the customer could try. Thanks for your time…

[MTUSUPPORT]

This can occur, even with a Plextor drive. This is why MTU sells Tested and Certified CD+G drives. The only way to fix this is for you to have Plextor replace the drives with new working ones for CD+G.

[dscheerder]

....but the customer has two drives that do exactly the same thing, and they explicitly say CD + G compatible on the box. I realize it is theoretically possible that two drives are defective, but it is unlikely I'm sure you'd agree. No suggestions at all?

[MTUSUPPORT]

We do see 2 drives come in that are bad at times. The drives could have been from a bad batch.

Do both drives do it on the same exact discs or are they different discs? Have you tried using the same discs that are messing up in the Plextor Premium drives in the Plextor 48x drive?

If they all work, then it is the hardware. This is not odd to me at all, not from doing this for over 9 years now.

[dscheerder]

Alright, I suppose I'll have to RMA the two drives then. One last question; the drives are able to copy other formats of information flawlessly, even on the same media that won't work with the CD + G data. In your experience, will Plextor repair / replace these drives or just send them back no fault found and blame the media or something like that? Is there some way of writing up the error on the RMA form that might assist them in making the correct diagnosis?

P.S. I had someone who's done some work with CD + G stuff in the past say sometimes the drive is just trying to read or burn too quickly, have you encountered this before? Is there a recommended maximum speed for burning / ripping CD + G?

P.P.S. These forums are a great idea, you folks are quick to respond and I appreciate it very much. Thanks again!

[MTUSUPPORT]

For our company Plextor will replace the drives no matter what. We have had no problems having them replace the drives with new working ones, that do correctly work for CD+G.

I am unaware, I don't handle the RMA's to Plextor themselves. Normally they just swap the drives for us no problem though.

You can try slowing down the Reading speed if you would like. If the 48x is working on this same disc, the problem is the hardware and not the reading or writing speeds. I recommend to read and write at the fastest speeds unless you have problems, then slow them down to something slower.

Thanks for the compliments.