[gangaspeed]

Would it be possible to purchase parts off of pbrepair such as these:

Superdrive


HD

and put them in my Powerbook G4 TI DVI?

[peeb]

Yes. But you don't mean 'possible' do you?

[gangaspeed]

So your saying I can't ? lol Can I do either one of the two upgrades?

[peeb]

For sure you can do it. The question is, is it easy or cost effective? The hard drive upgrade may be, but you should think seriously about how much money you want to invest in this machine, compared to putting the price and re-sale value towards an mbp. It's certainly possible. What machine do you have, and what do you use it for?

[peeb]

Do you move around a lot? External hard drives and burners might be a better option.

[gangaspeed]

I have the PB G4 Titanium DVI, I use this machine for playing music and typing papers for school and playing movies, I use the internet alot, and do not run huge graphic programs or anything of that type. I want to be able to burn DVD's as well as keep a large amount on my computer with ease and still be able to run at optimum.
On another note I do not really have the funds to buy a new laptop at the time with school costs and all that, I would like to be able to upgrade and use for longer what I already have.

[pcummins]

I'd get a Pioneer DVR-K06 or DVR-K07 (if available) instead of the UJ-815, should be around $75 - $100 US.

[gangaspeed]

Would those be any harder or easier to install than the UJ-815? I think I am just going to get a good size Ext HD, any suggestions for around $100-$130?

Peeb: I do move things around quite often I think it would be better to get an Ext HD and install the DVD Burner so that it's always there ready to go without extra cords, the HD however would be fine externally since I will only be putting movies and tv series and such on there as well as have a backup for my music library.

[pcummins]

Generally they're about the same difficulty level, the only thing is to make sure it's the correct IDE mode (Slave or Master, think more than a few were set Slave when the TiBooks need Master due to the dual IDE buses) by checking your existing burner settings in System Profile and making sure you match up (otherwise, you have to reflash the drive on a PC, rather annoying to get full compatibility). With external drives you can pretty much get any 3.5" Firewire compatible case and pop a drive in, or get a Western Digital high end drive (like the 500 GB's for about $285 Au) with USB 2/Firewire to get the speed to the TiBook.

[JonoMarshall]

I'd wait for a broken last rev. TiBook to come on eBay (or similar) and buy it for £100 ($150) or so, then put your replaced parts back in it and resell it (honestly) for a slight reduction.

You'd then have a superdrive and 60gb HD at next to no cost. I've done this kind of thing before and it always seems to work out well as long as you have a bit of patience and don't pay over the odds for your donor machine.

Just a thought...

[gangaspeed]

Pcummins: You are talking about the superdrive replacement correct? When I look at my system profiler for the combo drive it this is what it shows:

Manufacturer: MATSHITA
Model: MATSHITA DVD-RAM UJ-845S
Revision: D100
Serial Number:
Drive Type: CD-RW/DVD-RW - wouldn't this mean it can burn DVD's already?
Disc Burning: Not Supported
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: No
Protocol: ATAPI
Unit Number: 0
Socket Type: Internal

and jonomarshall I need a HD bigger than a 60gb. Unless you mean just have the HD and put it in a 3.5 external casing.

[pcummins]

Odd - your TiBook must have been upgraded or repaired at some point recently (you got it second hand?), the UJ-845 can burn DVD's (+/-) and Dual Layer +R. Specifications are here, unless it's broken/faulty no point replacing it at this level, unless you want the Pioneer (no region issues, IMHO more flexible with media for burning). In general you should stick to 2x - 4x burning, the 8x burns generally are not that much faster due to the way the drives handle the burn (Z-CLV, so ends up about 5.5x across the disc).

[gangaspeed]

What program would I use to rip a DVD and Copy it to another one then? Sorry First time mac owner in april this year.. and what discs to look for?

[macgyvr64]

Originally Posted by pcummins 

I'd get a Pioneer DVR-K06 or DVR-K07 (if available) instead of the UJ-815, should be around $75 - $100 US.

I second this :-) I own one of each, and both drives have offered nothing less than stellar performance.

Just make sure you're running 10.4.6 or later, as Apple added support for them in this update.

[pcummins]

There's several around like Mac the Ripper, have a look on VersionTracker under the Mac OS X section to check out what you are after (and other useful tools). I usually use Shintaro/Princo discs in my DVR-K05 without any problems. From memory the UJ-8x5 series is pretty picky about discs however, so if you can source some cheap single 4x or 8x discs of a semi-reputable brand (ie, not unlabelled) such as Memorex, Sony, TDK and Ricoh you can test then buy in bulk (other readers who have more experience should be able to chip in their recommendations). Always verify your data however, I keep getting PC users giving me unverified discs that are burnt incorrectly to cause me headaches (last thing you need when you are doing backups or similar important work).

[Waragainstsleep]

The 815 can be flashed region free.

[gangaspeed]

I will take a look at the VersionTracker website, thanks alot everyone.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

The 815 can be flashed region free.

What about the 846?

[gangaspeed]

Another question actually where it says: Disk Burning; Not Supported, I can still burn even though it says that.

[pcummins]

You can burn from any non-Apple application (ie, not iTunes, iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto), however you can get PatchBurn to re-enable the support (though, the UJ-845 should be supported).

peeb: The UJ-846 is still region locked. There's no firmware for anything after the UJ-815 (ie, UJ-820, 825, etc).

[gangaspeed]

I installed and ran Patchburn, there is now vendor supported burning, so if I have videos in Itunes would I be able to burn them from there?

Thanks for all the help everyone sorry being such a newb about it never tried burning anything before on a mac.

[pcummins]

Yes, whatever iTunes supports for burning (ie, Audio CD's, MP3 CD's and Data CD/DVD's) you'd be able to burn direct from iTunes. Pretty sure the ITMS DRM on videos you download will prevent you exporting them easily to another format (ie, DVD) but should let you back it up with the DRM without a problem. If you had your own videos you wanted to process you're probably better off with VersionTracker to look for alternative burning/transcoding software to convert it to the format you prefer for personal use.

[gangaspeed]

So by purchasing and installing Toast 8 Titanium I could burn DVD movies that I have on my HD correct? as well as mp4 videos?

and on a side note what could I do to get better performance out of my PB, I know it is used but I do not have the money to spend $1000+ on a new laptop and would rather spend a smaller amount to get better performance out of this and use it for longer.

[Waragainstsleep]

Actually the latest drive you can flash is the 816. But its not so different to the 815. The only ways to speed up your PowerBook are to add RAM or to streamline your OS. Keep it clean. Rpepair your permissions, run diskwarrior if you have it. Use monolingual to get rid of unused languages and x86 binaries. That sort of thing.

[gangaspeed]

Doesn't answer my question. but good information to know I suppose.

[cherry su]

If you have a 550MHz or 667MHz VGA 'Book, then you can bump up the processor to 1.2GHz! Only $499!

Sonnet | PowerBook Upgrade Service for TiBooks

It's probably not worth it though

[drdaldds]

Years ago...with absolutely no background at all, with the titanium powerbooks, I replaced the dead CDRW in my powerbook with a pioneer DVR-K05 model (which apple refers to as their DL Superdrive). It took me a half an hour to do so. Now I have them in six titanium powerbooks. There are informational pdfs available on the web, to help you take the blamed thing apart, but with some tinkering, I found it to be very intuitive, and quite easy. You can do it...easily. Just take your time, and have at it. If you want one of the pdf's I got, email me.

Do not be intimidated...just charge right in...you can do this. It is way too expensive to send it out for such service. The DVD burners are all over eBay, and they are not really expensive. They also work great on my windows laptops.

pioneer DVR-K05, Drives, Controllers Storage items on eBay.com

[drdaldds]

I also have the pioneer DVR-111DBK units in external cases, that use firewire drive. They are also "apple" DL Superdrives for desktops. You do not need to flash anything...just go...and the setup there is extremely easy. I also have them in windows XP/Mac OS 10.4.9 desktops.

Both pioneer drives are original DL superdrives...and are blazing fast...also very functional. They are likewise quite reasonable.

[drdaldds]

To burn to DVD format, you will also need some software. More DVD players do allow you to view alternate formats (DivX, Mpeg3, Mpeg4, ad infinitum), but if you wish it to work on all players...you have to convert your movies to DVD format, and region 1. ffmpegX is one of the best, but I also use Open Shiva, Mac the ripper, and love the Velan (fast DVD Copy) and the Metakine programs (DVDRemaster)...as well as yade X. Toast is limited, and tends to fail with any copy protection, many of the above do not have those limitations. Popcorn does absolutely nothiing that the intrinsic Macintosh programs do, and is entirely redundant with Toast titanium. Quite honestly, with Roxio's limitations, their day in the sun is over...windows or mac.

[gangaspeed]

Ok I don't need to replace my drive since it is a DVD burner already and are any of those programs that you suggested an all in one programs? Such as Ripping/Converting/Burning?



Another question I have Mac The Ripper and Toast, I have movies on my PB that are DVDRips in .avi format, first question is can i rip with MTR and burn them to DVD's using Toast? and second question can I burn those .avis to dvd's to allow them to play on a dvd player?

[tmpilling]

***EDIT****

The aswer is yes, you can. Check out the Toast website.