Plextor Plextor Blu-ray CDRW/DVD 24X/16X/24X Disc Drive - PX-B900A/SW-BL / PXB900ASWBL

Reviewed by: Ultimate_Entertainment

Strengths: Largest current amount of cache buffer, 8MB, provide excellent stability for the burning &/or ripping process, especially for the large amt. of time needed for burning Blu-ray &/or for regular DVD's.

Weaknesses: Quick-install guide is very short & vague; detailed manuals in Adobe acrobat reader format included on bundled software CD. After 5 months, I STILL CAN'T PLAY PRE-REC. BD-MV's on the WinDVD BD Player!

Overall: Although it'll burn blank media, including blank Blu-ray discs, just fine, I purchased this Blu-ray burner from Plextor, primarily because I wanted to watch pre-recorded Hollywood Blu-ray Movies (BD-MV?s) with Plextor's included/bundled InterVideo WinDVD BD software, as well as burn personal, blank media. However, for the life of me, this thing just won't play pre-recorded BD-MV's, even thought I started out with all of the following: 37" Widescreen HD-Ready LCD Monitor with two DVI-D (both HDCP) and HDMI jacks; HDCP DVI-D cable; ATI Crossfire 1950 series PCI-e Cards (HDCP); 4 Gigs total RAM; Windows XP MCE 2005 (fully updated to current specs); 3.75 Terabytes total Hard Disc space Capacity; 1000 Watt. ATX PSU Power Supply; AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 Dual-Core CPU (AM2 Socket). And yet it won't play them.Although Plextor isn't totally to blame, I later discovered, thanks to the telephone tech. support at Plextor that researched my issue(s) and later got back to me, that even though my ATI 512MB X1950 XTX & X1950 CF ED. GPU Crossfire cards' claimed to be HDCP-enabled on the exterior of the retail packages--THEY WERE NOT! Get this: ATI, in an effort to make good on their promise to provide their 'World's Fasted Gaming GPU' by the release deadline in the USA (since their so-called 'powerful' X1800 Series GPUs kept becoming rare-to-find and also getting snuffed by it's major competitor, nVidea), released it's X1950 CF Series without bothering to manufacture the necessary HDCP hardware (I think in China?) needed play pre-recorded Hollywood Blu-ray Discs, even though that's what the boxes claimed. Fact: If your ATI-Brand X1950 Series graphics card was manufactured BEFORE September 2006, it is not actually HDCP-enabled, even though it falsely advertises it as being such on the retail exterior package. How To check? Go into your ATI Catalyst Control Center software suite/utility, & check under the hardware properties; I did, & the Hardware BIOS versions for each GPU (Not to be confused with the BIOS of your PC Motherboard) had the manufacture date of 07/26/2006. I called ATI, after much waiting and so-on, they informed me they were aware of the problem and hung-up, although I bet if I called them back, they'd probably say we were disconnected, yeah right. ATI has actually been getting a lot of flack for that, but very few people actually know about it, because very few people have expensive Blu-ray Burners for their PCs that also have software to play BD-MV's from their local video rental or retail store.However, after I returned both of my ATI X1950 graphics cards & bought just one 256MB ATI X1950 PRO from another ATI-third party vendor, that had the huge word, HDCP, labeled on the front of the box, I installed it and now it'll actually play the BD-MV's--rather than stop abruptly with an error message of HDCP incompatibility--but the catche is that it's a blank/black screen with only audio (i.e. no video, just audio). Now, I'm completely fed-up with ATI, I'm returning my ATI-CF Motherboard & Graphics Card & going for an nVidea SLI setup, hopefully I'll have more luck playing BD-MV's on my Plextor model with them than I have been with ATI.In any case, it's been a technical nightmare ever since I got this thing back in early December of 2006, at least for playing the Blu-ray movies, however, it does play regular DVD Movies fine, and burns very described blank media so far without any known problems, but if all I wanted it for was simply to burn & play, I would've just either a Blu-ray Burner w/out the playing multimedia software for several hundred dollars less, or I could've just bought a decent $50-$100 DVD burner & maybe just a PS3 for the for rest & still saved money, time, and heartache.Bottom Line: If you want it for the same reasons I did, either really, really, really do your homework to make sure all of your PC parts & components will actually work (& not just simply meet the min. hardware req.), or, just wait for the technology to get better, cheaper, more available and compatible... Like I should've done.