This new Plextor 24x10x40x has got some very nice features to make it possible to write flawless at 24X. Though it says that the drive writes at 24x, it doesn't do this over the total lenght of the disc.
The inner sectors have a smaller density than the outer ones wich make it very hard to record on the inner sectors at 24x. T What happens in the inner sectors ? The technology Plextor uses is ZONE-CLV. This stands for Zone-Constant Linear Velocity. It means that a certain zone on the disc is written at a constant speed .
Shortly - This Plextor begins to burn the first 6 minutes of a disc at 16-speed. Between 6 min and 16 min Plextor increases the speed up to 20x.
After this it will complete the disc at 24x (from the 16th min till the end of the disc)
This means that the average writing speed is somewhere around 22x.
Zone-CLV example
A total new technology that plextor created is called PowerRecII. PoweRec = Plextor Optimised Writing Error Reduction Control The PoweRec technology will identify and test the target disc and select an optimised write strategy for this media. Running OPC will overcome the varieties in dye characteristics over the disc. During writing, realtime write quality monitoring ensures the best write quality for the selected speed.
Additional, PoweRec II will act similar for speed- and area switching in Zone CLV recordings. The write quality at the end of a zone will determine the recording speed in the next zone.
