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Todd Madson · Mar 23, 2003, 07:57 PM

My wife's last iMac was an iMac DV SE.

She got a good deal on a new iMac with
600 mhz G3 processor and 40 gig drive,
768 megs of ram as well as CD-RW drive.

But she misses watching DVDs on her iMac.

Are there any external DVD player drives available for her machine?

Thanks in advance.

Coxy · Mar 23, 2003, 08:40 PM

Buy a plain IDE DVD drive and a 5.25" FireWire drive case.

joe · Mar 24, 2003, 07:31 AM

Another option would be to buy a Firewire DVD-R (SuperDrive) such as the LaCie or Formac Devideon. It's more expensive though ($350-399). But you'll be able to burn a full 4.7GB data DVD in 15minutes flat (inc lead in/out). Both drives come with video DVD creating software that works in OS9/OSX and with G3/G4. So you can create your own video DVDs that play on standard consumer DVD players - though it takes quite a long time to encode the video. Also, both drives support Finder burning of DVD-RW discs and CDr/rw too (16x CDr). Works with iTunes also.

I own the Devideon, a friends owns the LaCie. Personally, I like the smaller footprint of the LaCie drive and the video software (CaptyDVD) supports chapter markers. The Devideon has a nice screen saver feature but I'm still waiting for chapter marker support. Both use the new 4x Pioneer DVD-R/RW drive. You'll still need to extract the Apple DVD player from your OS discs regardless of what type of external DVD drive you get. For OSX you need a program called Pacifier (or maybe Pacifist). I don't remember the OS9 program offhand, but I used it years ago and I'm sure it's still available on versiontracker.com. Good luck whichever you decide.....joe

Dex13 · Mar 24, 2003, 08:09 PM

Originally posted by Coxy:
Buy a plain IDE DVD drive and a 5.25" FireWire drive case.

link(s)?

tr · Mar 24, 2003, 11:07 PM

http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/drived....drivedb.lasso

put in whatever type of drive, what interface, and see reviews of what people have done that works okay.

tr

bradoesch · Mar 25, 2003, 09:49 AM

Originally posted by joe:
You'll still need to extract the Apple DVD player from your OS discs regardless of what type of external DVD drive you get. For OSX you need a program called Pacifier (or maybe Pacifist). I don't remember the OS9 program offhand, but I used it years ago and I'm sure it's still available on versiontracker.com. Good luck whichever you decide.....joe

For OS X it's Pacifist and for good 'ole OS 9 use TomeViewer.

Todd Madson · Apr 5, 2003, 08:48 PM

I just grabbed the version off of my G4/400 and dropped it on her desktop.

We're still seeking out solutions. More later - we think we may have found something.

Unfortunately, the market is so geared to DVD writers that this product is all but non-existent now.

Agent69 · Apr 5, 2003, 11:34 PM

Originally posted by Todd Madson:
I just grabbed the version off of my G4/400 and dropped it on her desktop.

We're still seeking out solutions. More later - we think we may have found something.

Unfortunately, the market is so geared to DVD writers that this product is all but non-existent now.

I've seen a Sony 5.25" IDE DVD Reader for about $70.00 at CompUSA. Another place that you can go is http://www.megahaus.com, they have a huge selection of hard and optical drives.

Out of curiousity, does this actually work, using an external DVD Reader to play DVDs? I was always under the impression that Apple made it so that you can't do that.

tonyibook · Apr 6, 2003, 05:04 AM

I have an LG IDE DVD-ROM drive which I placed into an external firewire 5.25" case. Total cost about �80. You need to patch the DVD Player application and then it works perfectly, it even auto runs when you place a DVD in the drive.

Krusty · Apr 9, 2003, 06:10 PM

Originally posted by Todd Madson:
I just grabbed the version off of my G4/400 and dropped it on her desktop.

We're still seeking out solutions. More later - we think we may have found something.

Unfortunately, the market is so geared to DVD writers that this product is all but non-existent now.

How about just getting a stock replacement DVD drive for slot loading iMacs ? Costs less than $38 and its the exact same drive used in the DVD slot-loaders (so, no worries about drivers or support).

Dex13 · Apr 9, 2003, 07:26 PM

Is there much difference between 4x and 16x dvd players?

Krusty · Apr 9, 2003, 07:41 PM

Originally posted by Dex13:
Is there much difference between 4x and 16x dvd players?

Oh, about 4x

... seriously, the 4x stock DVD player in my machine works plenty quickly to play DVDs ... it would be slower at loading data from a DVD than a 16x but how often are you really going to do that ??

Besides the link I provided, I have seen other 6x and 8x DVD replacement drives for slot loaders in the $59-$69 range. MCE actually just released an 8x8x8x24 DVD/CDRW combo drive for slot loaders (but they're still pretty expensive right now .. like $279).

IMHO, its a LOT easier to find a good, fast, CHEAP, SUPPORTED external CDRW than an external DVD drive.