[SimeyTheLimey]

I really don't know much about this, so I would appreciate some expert advice.

I have a Quicksilver 2002 G4 800 which came with a CD-R drive. I just ordered Tiger and it comes with a DVD. I know I can get CDs, but it occurs to me that for not that much more I could get a DVD/CD drive.

I read the instructions on replacing the drive, and it SOUNDS pretty easy. Power down, undo some screws and a cable, replace the drive, put the screws back. If so, I'd prefer to get another internal drive.

Does anyone have a recommendation? How about this one? Obviously, I want it to be fully compatible with my computer as well as iTunes, iDVD, Carbon Copy Cloner, etc. Plus, of course, be easy to install.

Thanks!

[Krusty]

Originally Posted by SimeyTheLimey

I
Does anyone have a recommendation? How about this one? Obviously, I want it to be fully compatible with my computer as well as iTunes, iDVD, Carbon Copy Cloner, etc. Plus, of course, be easy to install.

Simey, check out xlr8yourmac's drive compatibility database. Fill out the search parameters (type of drive, model of Mac you have etc) and you should get a pretty good list of real user experiences -- how easy to install, if it is natively recognized by OS X, it burning from the iApps is supported, etc.
BE VERY CAREFUL .. many of the Sony's require hacking and/or patching drives in order to be supported by the iApps. Best bet is to get a model that matches those that Apple ships with its own machines ... guaranteed to be fully functional and fully supported by OS X (Pioneer's are typically always supported).
[edit]
I see you're looking for a SuperDrive ... combo drive recommendations removed.

[bbales]

Are you SURE your computer can't read DVD/s? I have a computer that's 2 years older (a 2000 gigabit ethernet) and it -- which I'm still using, by the way -- can read DVD's.

Can't burn them, but it can read them.

[Krusty]

Originally Posted by bbales

Are you SURE your computer can't read DVD/s? I have a computer that's 2 years older (a 2000 gigabit ethernet) and it -- which I'm still using, by the way -- can read DVD's.

Can't burn them, but it can read them.

I can't speak for Simey's machine, but Apple went in a seemingly weird sequence with their optical drives ... my 2000 DV iMac had a straight DVD reading drive. Later models had a CD-RW with no DVD reading capabilities. Seems logically out of whack now, but technology of the time went
CD-->DVD-->CD-RW--->Combo--->Super drive

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally Posted by bbales

Are you SURE your computer can't read DVD/s? I have a computer that's 2 years older (a 2000 gigabit ethernet) and it -- which I'm still using, by the way -- can read DVD's.

Can't burn them, but it can read them.

Quite sure. Here's a pdf of the specs. Mine is the 800 model on the left.

Can anyone answer my question? Thanks

[Macola]

You should be okay with any of the recent Pioneer models. I have a DVR-107 and it works fine. Some of them may require installing PatchBurn for full compatibility, but that's easy enough to do.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally Posted by Krusty

Simey, check out xlr8yourmac's drive compatibility database. Fill out the search parameters (type of drive, model of Mac you have etc) and you should get a pretty good list of real user experiences -- how easy to install, if it is natively recognized by OS X, it burning from the iApps is supported, etc.
BE VERY CAREFUL .. many of the Sony's require hacking and/or patching drives in order to be supported by the iApps. Best bet is to get a model that matches those that Apple ships with its own machines ... guaranteed to be fully functional and fully supported by OS X (Pioneer's are typically always supported).
[edit]
I see you're looking for a SuperDrive ... combo drive recommendations removed.

Thanks, I took a look at the web site. Unfortunately, a lot of it is still somewhat over my head, but if I understand it correctly, it looks like the Pioneer DVR-109 will work, but won't burn DVDs without patchburn and I might have to drop the speed to 24X. Do I have that right? Edit: this site seems to give confirmation, but the price is a bit high.


If that will work, I'll probably go ahead ang get it. Also, any preferences on media?

[Krusty]

Originally Posted by SimeyTheLimey

Thanks, I took a look at the web site. Unfortunately, a lot of it is still somewhat over my head, but if I understand it correctly, it looks like the Pioneer DVR-109 will work, but won't burn DVDs without patchburn and I might have to drop the speed to 24X. Do I have that right? Edit: this site seems to give confirmation, but the price is a bit high.


If that will work, I'll probably go ahead ang get it. Also, any preferences on media?

2 Notes:
For media look for Taiyo Yuden. They OEM for several manufacturers (Fuji, etc) and are known for good quality. Many places that sell media will explicitly advertise that their discs are Taiyo Yuden. Barring that, look for PioData .. its made by Pioneer and is specifically rated to work with their drives.
DVR-109 is probably a great choice. 16x and dual layer. There is a rumored upgrade to the Superdrives in the next revs of Macs. Its HIGHLY likely that they will be to the DVR-109 as Apple OEM (since Apple has used all other drives in the DVR series as they came out). So, you may only need Patchburn to use the DVD to install 10.4 ... I'd almost bet money that once you have Tiger installed, it will support this drive natively.

Now that you know what you are looking for, go to dealmac and you can find the dvr-109 for around $60 (just a few bucks more than the Sony special you found).

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally Posted by Krusty

2 Notes:
For media look for Taiyo Yuden. They OEM for several manufacturers (Fuji, etc) and are known for good quality. Many places that sell media will explicitly advertise that their discs are Taiyo Yuden. Barring that, look for PioData .. its made by Pioneer and is specifically rated to work with their drives.
DVR-109 is probably a great choice. 16x and dual layer. There is a rumored upgrade to the Superdrives in the next revs of Macs. Its HIGHLY likely that they will be to the DVR-109 as Apple OEM (since Apple has used all other drives in the DVR series as they came out). So, you may only need Patchburn to use the DVD to install 10.4 ... I'd almost bet money that once you have Tiger installed, it will support this drive natively.

Now that you know what you are looking for, go to dealmac and you can find the dvr-109 for around $60 (just a few bucks more than the Sony special you found).

Very cool! Only one question remaining -- what's this business about the firmware mentioned in the other thread? I really don't want the hassle of installing it into a pc.

[CIA]

Hands down, get a DVR-109. I have one, and love it. And it's fully supported under OSX 10.4.
Under 10.3 it will work, but to use the iApps you need patchburn, which I installed and now my mac acts like the drive shipped with the machine from apple. Great drive with legs for the future. Little more then the sony drive, but not much, and Pioneer makes good stuff.
You may need to update the firmware for the drive, but thats easy to do with a PC (took me 2 min, and I don't really know PC's at all) But even if you don't update the firmware it will work fine.

[CIA]

Depending on what firmware you get on your drive, you may need to update. The original firmware didn't support dual layer burning, then a later one came out that upgraded the drive to handle it, and increased some other burn speeds. In late march the 1.40 firmware came out, which again updated the burn speeds, and added support for different types of DVD media. So crappy DVD-R's became a little more reliable to use, and added support for 16x DVD-R's (which aren't even for sale yet lol). Plus some other stuff. You don't NEED to update the firmware, but it can't hurt, and will only help.
You won't get 16x speeds for single layer burns (which 99% of the time you will be doing) because your Mac's internal IDE bus that your current CD-R is on is only an ATA-33, and too slow. But you should be able to get 12x burns. Definatly 8x. (8x burns a full DVD in under 10 min.) I'm going to experiment running my 109 off a PCI ATA-133 card I added, but since no 16x DVD-R discs are available yet, it'll be awhile. Yes I know you can find 16x DVD+R, but +R sucks for movies.

I'm running an original Quicksilver Dual 800, so basically the same machine.

[SimeyTheLimey]

CIA: thanks for the information. What's involved with upgrading the firmware with a PC? We do have a PC, but if I screw it up, I'd be for the high jump!

I found this link where a guy came up with a script to change the firmware on a Mac for the DVR-108. I wonder if he will do the same for the DVR-109?

[amazing]

The DVRFlash utility that you found works great, I've used it to update 2 fw-400 Pioneer DVR108 drives. And yes, you may have to wait for awhile longer than if you were able to use a PC, but it will work.

About media: Supermediastore.com is selling 16X Taiyo Yuden. On an updated DVR108 internally in a PC they don't burn any faster than 8X (in repeated tests, they burned almost a minute slower.) After over a thousand burns (seminars) the best media is TDK 8X, which you can find on sale every weekend at various local superstores like BestBuy etc.

Also, from what I've read, if a Pioneer drive is installed internally, isn't it supported natively with no need for Patchburn? Isn't Patchburn only for using an external firewire burner?

[Macola]

Originally Posted by amazing

Also, from what I've read, if a Pioneer drive is installed internally, isn't it supported natively with no need for Patchburn? Isn't Patchburn only for using an external firewire burner?

It depends on the model. I had no problems with my DVR-107, but I installed a couple of DVR-108s for a client and they weren't recognized by the iApps until I installed PatchBurn.

[CIA]

DVRFlash is great, but it is not compatible with the DVR-109 (yet).
To flash the DVR-109 to the newest firmware on a PC:
1. Download this, it's the software to update the firmware, might as well download it on the PC, since that is where all this will be happening.
2. Shut down the PC.
3. Open up your PC, unhook your CD-ROM or whatever it is, check the jumpers on it, make sure you set the DVR-109 jumpers to the same setting.
4. Hook up the DVR-109 where the PC CD-Rom or whatever used to be. No need to install it, when I did this my DVD burner was connected, but just hanging outside of the case.
5. When you restart, if you get "New Device found" messages, just cancel. No need to install drivers for a drive that will be the PC for 2 minutes. The flasher will find the drive fine without drivers. Make sure the connections for the cables are tight though. First time I restarted the PC couldn't find the drive. Turns out since it was just (literally) hanging outside the case, the IDE connection was bad, I reset the cable, restarted and the PC saw it no problem.
6. Run the flash utility you downloaded. Flashing takes about a minute.
7. Shut down when it's done, hook up the PC CD-Rom again, put the PC back together. Your done with that now.
8. Make sure to reset the jumpers on the DVR-109 to master (most optical drives in the mac are usually jumpered to master.)
9. Install in your mac and enjoy owning a burner faster then the media available.

On the patchburn front. If your drive is not supported by OSX, you need to install patchburn.
10.4 greatly increases what is supported by the way. ex the 109 is not supported natively in OSX 10.3, but is in 10.4. Internal or external matters not. Some drives work fine without patchburn (say you only use toast to burn CD/DVD's) but won't burn in the finder, iApps, etc... All patchburn does is make OSX think you have an apple installed or supported drive. Also your results will vary depending on what drive you are trying to patch. Some drives just won't work in OSX period.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Order placed!

Thanks again. I'll let you know how it works out.

[SimeyTheLimey]

So far so good. I updated the firmware as described above, installed it and downloaded Patchburn. It all seems to work fine.

Three questions: How do you do double layer burns? Do you need special media? Software (other than the latest firmware?

Second question: I was surprised that I don't seem to have DVD Player on my computer. Apple says that it should be with Panther, but somehow I missed out. I downloaded VLC and it works, but the interface is a bit clumsy. Will I get a better DVD player with Tiger? (I.e. to watch movies on).

Third question: Do I need to uninstall Patchburn when I get Tiger if I do an archive and install?

Thanks!

[Krusty]

1) You need double-layer media ($$$) and -- at least in 10.3 -- 3rd party software such as Toast for double layer burns. link . One would *hope* Tiger will support double-layer natively if it supports this drive natively (as CIA says it does).

2) Apple's OS installers are "smart". If they don't detect a supported DVD drive when you install the OS, it will not install the DVD Player app (why bother if you have no DVD drive in the first place ?). When you install Tiger, it should recognize your new drive and install DVD Player appropriately. There are a couple of methods for getting DVD Player to install with your current 10.3 disks if you feel the need to do that before getting Tiger. Let us know if you are dying to do that and we can make suggestions. But basically, you DO have DVD Player on your 10.3 install disks, they just didn't install because your machine didn't have a DVD drive when you installed the OS.

3) It wouldn't hurt. But since you are planning an archive install, the old patchburn settings *should* be attached to your 10.3 system and the 10.4 system will be "fresh" with Apple's native disk drivers. If it were me. I'd un-install patchburn directly before installing 10.4

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally Posted by Krusty

1) You need double-layer media ($$$) and -- at least in 10.3 -- 3rd party software such as Toast for double layer burns. link . One would *hope* Tiger will support double-layer natively if it supports this drive natively (as CIA says it does).

2) Apple's OS installers are "smart". If they don't detect a supported DVD drive when you install the OS, it will not install the DVD Player app (why bother if you have no DVD drive in the first place ?). When you install Tiger, it should recognize your new drive and install DVD Player appropriately. There are a couple of methods for getting DVD Player to install with your current 10.3 disks if you feel the need to do that before getting Tiger. Let us know if you are dying to do that and we can make suggestions. But basically, you DO have DVD Player on your 10.3 install disks, they just didn't install because your machine didn't have a DVD drive when you installed the OS.

3) It wouldn't hurt. But since you are planning an archive install, the old patchburn settings *should* be attached to your 10.3 system and the 10.4 system will be "fresh" with Apple's native disk drivers. If it were me. I'd un-install patchburn directly before installing 10.4

Thanks for the help. I'll go ahead and delete patchburn to be on the safe side. I just checked and you aren't kidding that dual layer DVD media are expensive. Presumbably the price will come down at some point. Right now though, I am not sure they are worth it.

[CIA]

Originally Posted by SimeyTheLimey

Thanks for the help. I'll go ahead and delete patchburn to be on the safe side. I just checked and you aren't kidding that dual layer DVD media are expensive. Presumbably the price will come down at some point. Right now though, I am not sure they are worth it.

Ya, right now the only DL media is of the +R type, and +R is notoriously bad for burning DVD movies. Actually, they burn fine, but on the playback front they are sketchy on home DVD players. Also, why pay $15 for a disc (with chance of burn failure) when you can just buy the DVD at the store for $20?
The Dual Layer DVD-R format was recently finalized, soo..... Probably by X-mas you will be able to find the media lol. By then Pioneer will be shipping 16x DL drives, with 24x or 32x single layer -R burns. But the media for these drives won't ship for another year after haha.
I love how you can buy these drives literally years before media is cheap, or even available for them.

1 1/2 years ago I paid nearly $200 for my DVR-105. I paid about $65 for my DVR-109 3 weeks ago.... Progress.

When you install 10.4 it will overwrite the patchburn files, so no need to un-install.
You need Toast 6.0.9 for full support of the DL stuff under 10.3. Like I said, 10.4 will support it for iDVD and iTunes etc....

[JackButler]

Hi all,

Wow, this is a great thread... I have been looking for info on which drive to get myself for a G4 sawtooth. The original drive just died last week. Started to mount some disc's and not others until it completely gave out.

Anyway, I have been looking at the Pioneer DVR-109A BK and the NEC 3520 (both from newegg.com. best prices I could find). So I have read all the above discussion but have a few questions if anyone can help thanks.

To flash the firmware on the Pioneer 109 which Windows OS is needed? I hear that it's only 2000 or XP. I don't have a PC but my roommate dose and it's running 98w/ME on top of it (not sure but when it starts up the splash says ME). Also I have been informed that the 109 can be flashed to A09 (the retail version of the drive).... now is that the same firmware update file? or do I need to download the A09 firmware? This is suppose to unlock some faster ripping speeds.

What about straight out of the box... is this drive plug and play in panther/tiger ? any limitations? I do know about patchburn for the iApps. But I want to boot from the drive which I have read is possible.

Oh! One last question please. what about the Pioneer A09 drive?


OK... now I'm done

TIA

[CIA]

Originally Posted by JackButler

Hi all,

Wow, this is a great thread... I have been looking for info on which drive to get myself for a G4 sawtooth. The original drive just died last week. Started to mount some disc's and not others until it completely gave out.

Anyway, I have been looking at the Pioneer DVR-109A BK and the NEC 3520 (both from newegg.com. best prices I could find). So I have read all the above discussion but have a few questions if anyone can help thanks.

To flash the firmware on the Pioneer 109 which Windows OS is needed? I hear that it's only 2000 or XP. I don't have a PC but my roommate dose and it's running 98w/ME on top of it (not sure but when it starts up the splash says ME). Also I have been informed that the 109 can be flashed to A09 (the retail version of the drive).... now is that the same firmware update file? or do I need to download the A09 firmware? This is suppose to unlock some faster ripping speeds.

What about straight out of the box... is this drive plug and play in panther/tiger ? any limitations? I do know about patchburn for the iApps. But I want to boot from the drive which I have read is possible.

Oh! One last question please. what about the Pioneer A09 drive?


OK... now I'm done

TIA

I flashed my drive on a PC running Win 98. So you should be ok, The other questions are answered already above in this thread. Also, it's true that the A09 version of the drive rips DVD's faster. You can flash your drive to be whatever you want. The drive is identical to the DVR-109, just different firmware. I chose to leave my drive the DVR-109 since 4x DVD rips are ok, and any faster opens the chance of errors. (note I said chance, faster rips can work fine tho). Either way I'm happy so I would buy one. The drive is bootable once you install patchburn.

[JackButler]

98, good to know.... I also re-read your posts above and understand it better (I admit, I rushed through them the 1st time).

I'm hoping that if I get the drive, that the firmware would be up to date. But just in case I 'll follow the instructions above. What had me worried was when reading in other forums of users flashing the drive from 109 to A09 which made me think that the 109 OEM was a crippled down version of the retail A09. I have since been told that it's the firmware and the housing that separate the two (the A09 is said to have quitter housing and the front face plate is for surface mount on PC.. oh yes and the retail box).

Thanks CIA

[CIA]

Glad to help!

[JackButler]

Just got the drive installed in about 5min.

Boots OS install CD w/o patchburn. Toast 609 recognizes it no problem. So dose iTunes but I have yet to try other iApps..... I don't think in Tiger I will need the patch.

Drive has firmware 1.17 on it (Manufactured date was Dec 04). I don't think that I will update the firmware to 1.4 at this time. Supplemental Info sheet came w/drive says it's updated for DVD 6x DL both -R & +R.

Quiet drive so far.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Forget it.

[hotani]

I just ordered this drive for $58 shipped and am hoping to install and run patchburn and be done with it. Anyone else tried this drive? There was one or two reports of it working with an MDD machine on xlr8yourmac's db so I'm pretty sure it'll work ok.

[Krusty]

Originally Posted by SimeyTheLimey

Forget it.

Hey, how is Tiger playing with your new drive ?? Is all well ??

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally Posted by Krusty

Hey, how is Tiger playing with your new drive ?? Is all well ??

Uh, probably. Initially I got an error message and it wouldn't burn CDs or DVDs. Now it seems to be working OK. I'm not quite sure what is going on, but if it works I'm happy.

DVD player installed as you said it would. It's a lot nicer than the player I was using.