[winky]

Has anyone used any CDR-W with the iMac DV-SE and OS9? OS8.6? Firewire? I have just tried to use the Sony Spressa (Both Firewire and USB) with no success. Sony does not have clue how to help me and Apple has been no help either. As I see it, my only option is to return the Sony and try another brand. I just want to be assured that whatever I buy will work with the iMac DV-SE and either OS8.6 or OS9.

[disectamac]

I see no one has responded to you just yet,
I don't have an answer for ya but I just wanted it be known that I am very interested in an answer for your question, I produce my own label of mixed CD's (audio) and although pain stakingly time consuming (18hour days), I have been relying on the 2x QPS USB Que drive to burn my cd's. I know I know but if it has to get done it somebody has to do it.
I'm interested in purchasing a fast FIREWIRE CD BURNER. From what I hear and read Yamaha and Sony as well as a couple of others have solutions on the way or available, but I'm waiting on some feedback from the mac community on how these units work? good bad? flaws speed? I'm hoping Yamaha's 8x recorder will be my answer? Does anyone out there have any experiences or info they could share?
What do you think would be the best choice of CD burner for the iMac DV SE which I do not own just quite yet? should be finally getting it this weekend.

[MikeD]

the USB que works fine.. As for firewire.. I'm waiting for my 32x8x4 QPS to come in.. oh yeah, it's firewire...

Mike

[MAlan]

You should see my topic called new iMac firewire. I'll make a new reply so it goes to the top of the list.

I have a LaCie USB 4x2x8x and it works well as long as I don't have other peripherials connected to the USB ports. I haven't experimented with it alot, but when the CDRW is connected to my hub, which also has a zip, a floppy and an epson printer attached, the CDRW failed to burn an audio CD. When the CDRW is connected directly to the iMac DV and the others are not there is no problem.

[disectamac]

qps 32x8x4x firewire CDRW?? where can I get my hands on one of these these?? is it compatible with the iMac DV SE?

[MAlan]

I'd be interested in this one too...but they aren't shipping yet as far as I can tell. Everyone seems to be waiting for their order. QPS is probably fixing the firewire timing issues right now w/ the new iMacs and G4's along with Sony, Rantic, EZquest and any other vendor making firewire CD writers. I haven't seen one manufacturer say they are in compliance. EZQuest has been the best at being up front with me (6x,4x,24x boa drive). They say they are testing their drives with the new iMacs right now. They got their new iMac last monday. Who knows what the other people are doing. I'm going to call around in a couple days if I don't get word from EZQuest soon.

[disectamac]

Hopefully, these new CDR's and CDRW's for firewire will be released and be iMac compatible sooner than later. Although I might settle for a 6x or a 8x from Qps or Yamaha or Sony etc etc I am looking forward to seeing what manufacturer will take lead in a 12x from what I gather, sometime in January.
I am however disapointed that Qps 8x4x32 only has a 2MB Ram buffer. would this effect stability in recording?

[MAlan]

Well first of all do you know what is a reasonable spec for a RAM buffer? For example what is typical for the SCSI CD rw. The SCSI CD rw perform pretty consistently

I've never thought of this issue before but now I'm going to go and look for that on all the other products I'm looking at.

On another note I've finally heard back from EZQuest. The tests with the new iMacs went well. The Boa drive works so...that gives me the green light to buy but now everyone has me thinking about the Que!. I don't know...does anyone know if this new Que! drive is compatible with Toast 4.0. If it isn't I'm going with the Boa. The software is more important in the writing process than I first thought.

[disectamac]

My reasons for mentioning the Ram buffer size is when I first started using my USB Que Drive I went through several CD's because of errors.
after going my situation over with customer service at QPS, we found that the media I was using was garbage....it was one of those buy 50 disks on a spindle for like 30 buck deals. since then I have stuck to using media more reliable and have been using imation although others are also good.
One of the other things customer service told me was that because the buffer size on the Que drive is 2MB the Toast preferences must also be set to 2MB not 2MB generous or anything higher. Another thing I notice about the ram buffer is when testing your data for speed before burning it you can visually see your ram get filled and then get drop quickly just before the burner reacts and starts using it so that it can fill up again. The ram fill meter drops quicker at higher speeds of testing like when I'm burning Mac Files & folders or ISO9660 formats at 4 speed. That is why my concern was the Buffer size especially when these other drives are supposed to burn at 6 and 8 speeds.
What happens when your Ram Buffer empties faster then it fills? You get an error message and your disc fails to get written.
well, I'm no liscensed tech person, and firewire could make for more stability I'm not sure. butI hope someone could bring this Ram Buffer size thing to light for us.

[MikeD]

Okay as far as availability for the que, I was told a couple of weeks ago it was scheduled for the 10th or 12th.. But now it's been delayed until the 30th of Nov. I went to qps-inc website and it said the firedrives would be available by the end of November. Also, if one firewire dive works with toast, I'm sure adaptec can make all firewire drives work with it (support).

Mike

[winky]

Well I received the updated drivers from Charismac today and happily report that I have burned 3 CDs with no problems. The new drivers have cured the problem!

Anyone have much luck with the EZQuest USB CDR?

I am a CD-RW enthusiast, not a technician. No other recordable media offers me such diversity. I have not delved into the iMac/USB world, but am right up to it with my G3s. I am leary to move to either a USB or Firewire CD-R/RW. My basis for this is due to continuing statements as to the consistancy of the Data stream that many CD-RW recordings require. (i.e. Long Music tracks & large files in general) A recent article in "MacAddict" spoke of the "Asynchrynous" and "Synchrynous" natures of Firewire & USB, and I am left with the conclusion: Stick with my extremely reliable Yamaha SCSI CDRW. (Dropped frames may work for video recording... but... Audio seems much more picky. I am also staying at/under the 4x barrier for now, and not into the new 8x recorders, as another sticky issue to ponder seems to be the (cheap-o) Media's speed rating one uses. I personally use the cheapest media CDRs with a mere 1 in 30 becoming a drink coaster. Until I go whole hawg G4/G5, all my drink coasters will be old AOL CDs.

I've been struggling with the Spressa as well. I upgraded a Rev. C iMac to 8.6 and the Spressa stopped working, I've also been having problems trying to make it work on an iMac DV SE running 8.6, but I managed to get them both working today. However, the new Discribe CD-ROM extension 1.41e did not solve all problems. Both iMacs still freeze solid if you try a test write (!), but they work if you are willing to risk a disk and go directly to a final write. I've burned CDs at 4X on both of them today (data, not music) that seem fine. I'm hoping that this problem will also be fixed by CharisMac, but I might have to buy Toast 4 to get software where everything actually works (assuming Toast 4 does).

[MAlan]

Well for those who are interested I called QPS today. The first person I talked to told me the firewire CD RW drive would be out on Dec. 1st. The second person, who was an engineer, told me the 15th. I was talking to the engineer about compatibility with the new iMacs. He said that they will come with Toast 4.1 and won't ship if they aren't compatible.

I don't know about you guys but I believe the 15th date which is too long for me to wait. So I decided on the Boa drive from EZQuest...6x,4x,24x drive. I ordered one today from Smalldog electronics. They only had one in stock. I would have bought it from Outpost but they don't seem to carry products by EZQuest.

EZQuest has confirmed to me that the drive I bought is compatible with the new iMacs. They have actually been tested with them which makes me happy. I'll let you guys know how it goes. I'm expecting to receive it next friday (I should've paid for the overnight shipping)

I've recently been infomed that, apple has posted two Firewire CD-RW on their Website at http://www.apple.com/firewire/firewireproducts.html.

The products are the Fantom FireStorm CD-RW, and the FirePower FireDrive CD-RW.

------------------

I have a iMac DV SE with OS 8.6.
Great machine! To burn CD's I use the Freecom Traveller CD-RW. It's a slim line drive. The smalles CD-RW I've ever seen. The drive comes standard with a USB Cable and Toast. Freecom is working on a FireWire Cable, and expect to ship it in Januari.
By changing the USB Cable for a FireWire Cable, this same Traveller CD-RW can be used on FireWire. So I don't have to buy another recorder!
Does anybody know something more about this FireWire Cable?

[smaffei]

winky,

I have a Sony Spressa USB CD-RW, an iMac DV, and OS 9. I've gotten my drive to burn.

First off, I don't use the CD-ROM extension that Sony gives you with the drive. It conflicts with Apple's. It's not needed to burn CDs anyway. Just make sure you have the USB extensions installled.

Discribe (no pun intended) your problems and maybe I can help you.

T. Amrine:

Can you please tell me where you got the new CharisMac usb driver. I just bought a Sony Spressa USB drive, and I can't get Toast to burn. it tell's me "can't determine free space". it reports problems with the driver when i go in to Toast.

p.s. I run on MacOS 8.6.

Thanks
-Steve

[winky]

Charismac was kind enough to email the new drivers to me. I would gladly email them any interested party. Please send me an email with the request to:

[email protected]

[MikeD]

MAlan,

Thanks for finding out that info from QPS. As long as I get a CDRW drive by xmas, I guess I'll be happy. I'll need stuff to do! Hopefully, things with ALL the companies start clicking so we all can have working firewire CD burners! As for shipping on the 15th or the 1st, did you find out why one said one date and the other said another? As long as Outpost gets em on the 16th, I'll be happy!

Take care all,
Mike

OK, upgraded to the new extension from CharisMac.. thanks Winky!

But I can't get rid of the error message when I try to burn a disk using Toast 4.0 deluxe.

Has anyone been able to get Toast 4.0 on a Sony Spressa USB to work.?

I get "can't determine free space on disk"

Please tell me how..

Thanks
-FiZeR


[This message has been edited by FiZeR (edited 11-30-1999).]

[MAlan]

Well I finally got my EZQuest 6x, 4x, 24x Boa firewire CD rw this morning. It does indeed work. I did a test write this morning to a CD rw at 4x (since it was a 4x disk). I'm going to try to burn an audio CD R tonight. I'll let you know how it goes. Toast is so much better than Discribe I can't believe the difference.
For those of you interested in buying this product here is some info on the negatives.

1. It shippped with Toast 3.8 and directCD
(I haven't been able to read from a CD yet).
I think it was advertised as shipping with Toast 4.0.
2. It has a noisy fan. It isn't deafening or anything but definitely noticeable. I won't be keeping it on for long periods of time.
3. On the back there are 2 firewire ports; one obviously for daisy chaining. Right next to one of the ports is a screw, which, when you plug in the firewire cable, seems to interfere with the cable going all the way in...but it doesn't. Therefore you can use both ports but that screw is in a very, very bad place.

My initial feeling is that I'm very happy I have a drive which works and uses the firewire port for transfer of data. I will let everyone know how it goes with writing CD R media and reading other CD roms.

[disectamac]

could you possibly get a Blank CDR disc or CDRW disc that supports 6x......so that you can let us know how it works at 6x? I can't take 2x anymore....its too time consuming...que drive is driving me nutz

[MAlan]

Will do...by the way, I first tried to write to this 4x disk at 6x. The process completed and then I slipped it into the iMacs DVD Rom drive. No dice, then I realized I screwed up and then promptly erased the disk and re wrote at 4x. It worked just fine. I was surprised actually. The drive is only supposed to support 6x when writing to CD R's so I'll do the experiment with a CD R drive writing an audio CD. I'm not at home right now so you'll have to wait until tonight for an answer.

[MikeD]

Wow it's great that you have your drive! I'd like to know about the 6x writing too. I hope my que drive can write at 6x as well as 8x. I know it's supposed to write at 8x but not sure about the 6x. What would happen if you wrote 6x on media that didn't say it was meant for 6x recording? Would the cd shoot out the drive? but seriously just wondering. Now I can't wait until my que comes in.. Hopefully with Toast 4.0.. If anyone knows what the significant differences between Toast 3.8 and 4.0, please post! MAlan, can't wait to hear more of your review!

Mike

[MAlan]

What happened to me is that I wrote at 6x and the process completed. I went to put it in the iMacs DVD drive (since I couldn't figure out how to read from CD's in the 15 minutes I had to play with it this morning) and the Mac OS told me it couldn't understand the disk and asked me if I wanted to initialized it. It popped out after I hit initialize (I wanted to see what happened...I should have pressed cancel). Then I erased re-wrote at 4x and then popped it back in the iMac. This time it mounted like any normal CD.

I can't wait to get home and write some of the music I've recorded onto some disks.

[blizaine]

I was just wondering where you bought your EZQuest Boa CD-RW Drive. I can't seem to find it at Outpost, CDW, MacZone, ClubMac, and MicroWarehouse, is there some other good online store out there that I'm missing? And what is EZQuest's web site?
Thanks in advance...

[MAlan]

This is the web page for the EZQuest drive.
http://www.ezq.com/fwcdrw.html

I bought the drive at Small Dog electronics.
http://www.smalldog.com/

I'll let you know how it goes tonight. I bought the last 6x, 4x, 24x Boa firewire CDrw
in stock...but EZQuest also sells the
4x, 4x, 24x version. They probably have that one at small dog as well.

[MAlan]

I wouldn't buy it just yet. Let me give you a report on whether I can get the full advertised functionality out of the thing. I couldn't immediately see how to use it as a second CD rom drive (I only tried for 15 minutes) and I haven't written to a CD R yet with the 6x writing capability.

[MAlan]

O.k. here it is. I was able to write at 6x.
I only wrote 3 songs to the CD R at 6x because I thought you could go back and write more to it later if you wanted. I was sadly mistaken. So I have 13 minutes of music on a CD that can hold 74. Nevertheless...it worked. It took about 5 minutes to write those 13 min of audio. I also found out how to use it as a CD rom reader. I must have been trying before I restarted the computer the first time I loaded the software because I did the same thing I did yesterday morning ...i.e. press command + m for mount.

I believe this is a good product. I don't think the company is that mature yet but their product does the job.

There are a couple more negatives to add to what I said before.

1. I tried turning the Boa drive off and back on again while the iMac was still on to see if I could use it after cycling power.
Result...the finder froze. I force quitted the finder and then the rest of the machine froze. You can turn the drive off while the iMac is on but not back on again.

2. The drive is only recognized by toast if it was on when the computer started up. This is not how firewire is supposed to work folks. Your supposed to just be able to turn it on and plug it in to the computer.

3. The noisy fan as I stated before.

4. The screw thing as I stated before.

All in all I think this is a good product that needs some more attention to detail in future designs. However, it gets the job done. I would give it a 3 1/2 star rating out of 5. Hope this helped. As far as writing at 6x...I don't think I'll have the problem that the USB drives do but we'll see. If I should have any problems in the future I'll let you know.

[MikeD]

Thanks MAlan! Let us know what happens when you burn a FULL audio CD at 6x! Also, was the media you used for audio a 6x compatable media or lower? I was wondering what would happen if you used a standard ole 4x CDR blank CD and just told the drive through toast or whatever to burn it at 6x. I know you tried with the RW disc but who knows... Anyways, i can't wait for my QPS to come in.. Hopefully within a couple of weeks.. At that Time, I'll post my results!! Now, lets try to direct some of our browsers to good cheap yet high quality media online. Any suggestions?

For one, I've always had good buys at best buy. I got a Sony 10 pack from them for only $10!

Mike

FiZeR, getting Toast Deluxe 4.0 to work with my Sony Spressa was an incredible nuisance, but I've finally managed to get it working properly. Could you please give a more thorough description of your problems so I can try to help?

[disectamac]

MALan, you wrote:
2. The drive is only recognized by toast if it was on when the computer started up. This is nothow firewire is supposed to work folks. Your supposed to just be able to turn it on and plug it into the computer.
I found the same problem with alot of peripherials that work through USB
Try turning your peripherial off while it is plugged in...then unplug either side of the cable...turn your periph on...then plug in your USB and then it becomes recogninzed.....let us know if this works for your FIREWIRE periph if you could as I don't have any firewire periphs just yet.

[MAlan]

I will try that...however, firewire is supposed to be a true hot pluggable interface. I know that the firewire hard drives have no problem in this area. I believe that it is the EZQuest software extensions that aren't up to snuff on this one. Toast is the 'customer' so to speak of the EZQuest extensions. I believe that when the EZQuest extensions are loaded at startup they go out and look for a drive...if none is there then Toast can't find the drive when I turn it on later. What I need is some EZQuest application that goes out and scans the firewire port periodically and offers that information to Toast. This would be akin to the Sony Hot Plug CD app that ships with the spressa drives (although it never worked right when I had my spressa drive).

grondijs,
I've got an imac rev.B and have been looking for a burner for months now. Where did you buy your Freecom Traveller? The idea of USB/Firewire support and your claim of flawless operation interests me. Thanks.

York

SeeDCadetSquall:

Please e-mail how you got the Spressa USB to work under Toast..

Thanks

[email protected]

I just spoke with a QPS tech and he said that the firedrive was developed for the new imacs and G4s in mind. they ship with the graphite inserts, firewire cable, a CDR and a CDRW, and Toast 4.01 for anyone who cares. I'm pretty sure that i will be placing my order today! i keep you updated on the performance

[MAlan]

For anyone interested in Firewire CD writers...

Well at long last I finally wrote 3 CD's this weekend at 6x with my Boa Firewire CD rw from EZquest. The drive performed flawlessly. I'm using Toast 3.8 and I don't care. It works and I'm very happy.

I used Sony CD-R media that is compatible with 6x recordng. On average I wrote about 62-68 minutes on each CD. It took about 12 - 14 minutes total.

The only drawback about this drive that I can see is that if you turn it off while the iMac is still on you get a system freeze.

Originally posted by REVa:
I just spoke with a QPS tech and he said that the firedrive was developed for the new imacs and G4s in mind. they ship with the graphite inserts, firewire cable, a CDR and a CDRW, and Toast 4.01 for anyone who cares. I'm pretty sure that i will be placing my order today! i keep you updated on the performance

Did you find out which year they plan to ship them?

I have just bought a BOA Firewire CDRW and Toast doesn't recognise it. I have tried all the usual restarting rubbish, swapping cables around, but to no avail. Does anyone know how to make it work? It shipped with Toast 3.8.2 USB which strikes me as not boding terribly well for Firewire compaibility!

I am using it on a G4/450 running OS9.