[benbargagliotti]

I have a G4 QuickSilver, with on of the optical drive slots taken by a CD-RW. I went cheap and didn't get the superdrive BTO, but one of the big reasons why is because the CD-RW can burn CD's a lot faster than the Superdrive, but I digress. I've been seeing Pioneer's new generation of DVD-RW, the A04 on Ebay for $360 or so. I've also seen, even today, companies selling these new generation of DVD-RW in firewire enclosures for around $600. I'm wondering if I can buy the internal version online for $350 and install it in the 2nd drive bay? thanks

Ben Bargagliotti

[Paul S]

The 2nd bay only supports a 3.5in. device unless you do a major case modification. For that, you should post in the Mod forum.

iDVD only works with internal devices, so you'd need to use DVD Studio Pro, but that's expensive. Your best bet is to replace your CD-RW with the SuperDrive and then put that drive into an external FW enclosure. That way, you can make DVDs with any software and still get your fast CD burn speeds and not potentially ruin your machine with the case mod.

[iKevin]

Yeah, PaulS is offering really good advice here. It is exactly what i'm going to do with my QuickSilver.

Buy a superdrive and install it in place of the cdrw. Then install the CDRW into a ADS Pyro firewire enclosure(which works perfect with OSX).

[benbargagliotti]

so, how do I "buy a superdrive." You can't buy it from the Apple Store. Do you mean by the Pioneer A03? A04? the drive bays really look like the same size, but i'll take your word for it. BTW, would a zip drive fit there? thanks

ben

[Paul S]

Yeah, buy an A03 or A04. The only real difference is the DVD read speed of 4x vs. 6x. Burn speeds are the same. The bay looks the same from the outside of the case, but if you open it up, you will see the drive bay is much smaller from the inside.

You can fit a Zip in there and buy a really nice Zip bezel from www.proline.com I have a hard drive in my lower bay running off the data jack there. It's a slower bus than the main hard drive bus, but it's fine for plain storage. I have 4 drives in the lower bays already so I didn't have much choice.

[benbargagliotti]

great, so will iDVD work with that, with the a04 in my first bay? what exactly is the difference other than price between iDVD and DSP? thanks

ben

[Paul S]

iDVD will work with the drive in the top bay. iDVD is free with any machine pre-installed with a SuperDrive. Otherwise, iDVD is $19.95 from Apple ( http://www.apple.com/idvd/upgrade/ ). DVD SP is $999.

[caleach]

I have one of the original G4 450's and want to install one of the Pioneer A04's. Where can I get the original iDVD so that I can upgrade? I couldn't find the first version for sale on the Apple site, only the upgrade.

Thanks,

Steve

Originally posted by caleach:
<STRONG>I have one of the original G4 450's and want to install one of the Pioneer A04's. Where can I get the original iDVD so that I can upgrade? I couldn't find the first version for sale on the Apple site, only the upgrade.

Thanks,

Steve</STRONG>

Originally posted by caleach:
<STRONG>I have one of the original G4 450's and want to install one of the Pioneer A04's. Where can I get the original iDVD so that I can upgrade? I couldn't find the first version for sale on the Apple site, only the upgrade.

Thanks,

Steve</STRONG>

The upgrade is actually a full version Apple just chose to call it an upgrade.

[caleach]

Originally posted by &lt;Dave F&gt;:
<STRONG>

The upgrade is actually a full version Apple just chose to call it an upgrade.</STRONG>

So if I purchase that one I don't need to have an earlier version installed in order to use it?

I think if Apple loosens the reigns a little bit they can expand their market for the iDVD without doing too much damage to new machine sales.

I'm really exited about getting into this and hope that I can find the Pioneer branded "super drive" to make the package complete.

[craigthomas]

OWC has the 104 for 379.00. Same model that ships in Apple systems. Compatible with iDVD:
http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_It...Item=PIODVR104

Just ordered mine. I'm looking forward to making iDVDs on my 466 G4.

Originally posted by craigthomas:
<STRONG>OWC has the 104 for 379.00. Same model that ships in Apple systems. Compatible with iDVD:
http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_It...Item=PIODVR104

Just ordered mine. I'm looking forward to making iDVDs on my 466 G4.</STRONG>

www.compgeeks.com sells it for $359. No software, but all the software is PC-oriented anyway so that shouldn't matter. In stock.

[©]

What makes the A-104 better than my A-103 ?? They are the same speed (2x1x8x whatever x)

[Paul S]

The AO4 has a DVD read speed of 6x vs. 4x on the AO3. The only other difference is that the AO4 is slightly shorter so it would fit in the new iMac. That's no big deal. DVD-R/RW and CD-R/RW speeds are the same.

[Mr. G4]

Originally posted by ©:
<STRONG>What makes the A-104 better than my A-103 ?? They are the same speed (2x1x8x whatever x)</STRONG>

Supposedly, the DVR should be more compatible with more player.

[exca1ibur]

I just got the DVR-104 for $356 at Hypermicro.com with 2nd day delivery. Runs great in my G4 500DP.

[warnergt]

Originally posted by exca1ibur:
<STRONG>I just got the DVR-104 for $356 at Hypermicro.com with 2nd day delivery. Runs great in my G4 500DP.</STRONG>

I just got one, too. In general, it works but all is not well. If I let it sit for a prolonged period with a CD in it, my G4 crashes -- even OS X -- which never happened before! I have sleep disabled. It also seems to create a problem that creeps up in OS 9. The OS X crash says something about a corrupt stack. It seems like some sort of memory leak.

Other than that, it does work. iDVD recognizes it. I can burn DVD-ROMS and CD-ROMs with Toast 5.x.

I sure would like to clear out this crashing problem. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[warnergt]

Good news! I figured out how to stop the DVR-104 crashes. It appeared to be some sort of sleep problem with the DVR-104. The drive went to sleep but never woke up. I checked my OS X "Energy Saver" settings and, sure enough, I had separate timing on hard disk sleep for 40 minutes. I changed the setting to "Never" and the problem is gone.

So, is this a bug in the Apple software? Does the Apple DVR-A04 SuperDrive do the same thing? As far as I can tell, these drives are identical. They even have the exact same firmware updater. The latest firmware for the A04/104 is 1.20 (not to be confused with the A03 SuperDrive which is up around 1.50+).

Just for the record, I had:
Put system to sleep: never
Separate timing for display sleep: never
Separate timing for hard disk sleep: 40 minutes

With these settings, the DVR-104 would go to sleep and never wake up. I could hear my hard drives wake (spin) up but the DVR-104 stayed out to lunch. OS X would spit out a bunch of text on the screen, report a corrupt stack and say something about IOKit.

Now, talk amongst yourselves.

[Mac Zealot]

One of the huge differences between the A04 and A03 is the noise.. the A03 uses a much heavier motor and makes my whole g4 vibrate.

The a04 in my bro's imac is considerably quieter.