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turk.o · Sep 18, 2004, 12:37 PM

Hey y'all, i've been experiencing this frustrating thing with my new 17 PB that I otherwise love. It is the newest rev. and comes standard with the Matshita UJ-815 Superdrive, which according to Apple's tech specs should be able to burn DVD-Rs at 4x speed. however in both Toast and Apple's own Disk Utility It only gives me the options of 1X or 2X, no 4X. (and on 2X it takes about a half an hour, which i believe is true 2X performace). I wanted to post here to see if there was known solution or some info out there before i called apple and went through the customer service gauntlet. any help would be much appreciated.

thanks!

t.o

sac84371 · Sep 18, 2004, 01:51 PM

Check your media. Is it rated for 2x or 4x. I would bet it is rated at 2x.

rjt1000 · Sep 18, 2004, 03:10 PM

hi,

yep, its probably the media. try tdk dvd-r 4x which works well in the superdrives. apples 4x media (more expensive) and ritek 4x media (less expensive) also get good reviews.

as an aside, i had a problem writing dvd-r's at 4x with toast 6.0 on my superdrive. it turned out that toast 6.0 requires you to insert the dvd-r before pressing the record button, or it defaults to 1x. i think later toast updates have cured that problem.

best wishes,

rich

turk.o · Sep 18, 2004, 04:10 PM

thanks for the suggestions guys, but i am actually using Ritek 8x DVD-R media. i should be able to get four times on that, right? i only can get 2X as previously stated. any other ideas? or should i just call apple?

t.o

MilkmanDan · Sep 18, 2004, 11:55 PM

This explains why my media is only going at 2x speed. Though occasionally it does make my life easier by going at 4x. Which is ever so odd.

Tomster · Sep 19, 2004, 01:15 PM

Originally posted by turk.o:
Hey y'all, i've been experiencing this frustrating thing with my new 17 PB that I otherwise love. It is the newest rev. and comes standard with the Matshita UJ-815 Superdrive, which according to Apple's tech specs should be able to burn DVD-Rs at 4x speed. however in both Toast and Apple's own Disk Utility It only gives me the options of 1X or 2X, no 4X. (and on 2X it takes about a half an hour, which i believe is true 2X performace). I wanted to post here to see if there was known solution or some info out there before i called apple and went through the customer service gauntlet. any help would be much appreciated.

thanks!

t.o

You mean the UJ-825 right? That is the one that comes with the latest round of Powerbooks and burns at 4x. The UJ-815 came with the last rev TiBook and the first rev Aluminum books and was limited to 1x. It can be firmware hacked to 2x though. The UJ-816 is exactly that same drive in the rev B's with a newer firmware and does 2x.

If you have a UJ-815 in your Powerbook, then either it is not the latest revision C, or the wrong drive was installed into your machine.

kafoochy · Sep 19, 2004, 01:29 PM

Originally posted by Tomster:
If you have a UJ-815 in your Powerbook, then either it is not the latest revision C, or the wrong drive was installed into your machine.

I second that. My Rev B/C 15" AluBook has the UJ-825, which should burn at 4x, assuming that this is actually the drive you have.

turk.o · Sep 19, 2004, 09:33 PM

hey y'all are right, i have the 825 superdrive, not the 815 (i was going from memory when i made my original post from my G5).

so yep to recap, new PB 17" with Matshita UJ-825 4x superdrive, with 8X Ritek DVD-R media.

Problem? yep, only burns at 2x in both Toast Titanium 6.0.1 and Disk Utility. any other suggestions?

belldandy · Sep 19, 2004, 09:41 PM

Originally posted by turk.o:
hey y'all are right, i have the 825 superdrive, not the 815 (i was going from memory when i made my original post from my G5).

so yep to recap, new PB 17" with Matshita UJ-825 4x superdrive, with 8X Ritek DVD-R media.

Problem? yep, only burns at 2x in both Toast Titanium 6.0.1 and Disk Utility. any other suggestions?

Have you tried update Toast to 6.0.5? Toast often included the proper support for a new dvd burner in updates. 6.0.1 sounds kinda old.

jocker · Sep 20, 2004, 06:26 AM

Originally posted by turk.o:
hey y'all are right, i have the 825 superdrive, not the 815 (i was going from memory when i made my original post from my G5).

so yep to recap, new PB 17" with Matshita UJ-825 4x superdrive, with 8X Ritek DVD-R media.

Problem? yep, only burns at 2x in both Toast Titanium 6.0.1 and Disk Utility. any other suggestions?

Best solution: get the Apple 4x media... forget upgrading to 6.05 and the like. The problem is that your drive is reporting 2x as the media's highest speed. Regardless of whether is says 8x on the label.

SEkker · Sep 20, 2004, 12:55 PM

I've replaced a Pismo's internal optical drive, and it burns fine at 4x using maxell or memorex dvd-r media.

I agree with an earloier post - start by upgrading toast. If the latest toast thinks it's still 2x, then there is something more worrisome.

turk.o · Sep 21, 2004, 05:15 PM

ok, the latest update is that even with toast 6.0.7 i'm still only getting 2x burns. could it be that 8x media can't burn in the drive at 4X and has to go at 2X? Do I need to get precisely 4X media?

bighead · Sep 21, 2004, 10:52 PM

I would guess it is the media you're using. I remember trying to use 4x Apple discs in my UJ-815 (2x) that was in my old 1.25 15" and it would only burn at 1x. It was a media issue that existed in most, if not all, 4x DVDs and the 2x burners.

The best thing is to only buy DVD media rated as fast as your DVD recorder. I've not tried 8x discs in my 825 in my current 15" 1.5, but my suspicion is that it would result in the same problems that you're having.

Pick up a set of 4x DVDs before calling Apple or stopping by a store to yell.