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Eug Wanker · 10:54 AM

OS X.3.3 supports the Panasonic/Matsushita UJ-825, and Panasonic has just released the 4X-capable UJ-820.

4X would be VERY nice, but I'm more interested in dual-layer support actually. I guess we'll just have to wait until the UJ-835 for dual-layer.

The UJ-820 also supports +R/W and -RAM burning, but I suspect that Apple will just remove that functionality if/when they use this drive.

Eug Wanker · Mar 24, 2004, 04:47 PM

Toshiba has also announced +/- dual format laptop drives, but there is no mention of speed.

Anyways, I'd be surprised if the new PowerBooks didn't use the Matshita UJ-825.

Tomster · Mar 24, 2004, 09:01 PM

Drool. Now for the holy grail. I cannot wait until those units are available consumers in individual quantities. Oh, and RPC1.

Eug Wanker · Mar 30, 2004, 12:57 AM

Originally posted by Tomster:
Drool. Now for the holy grail. I cannot wait until those units are available consumers in individual quantities. Oh, and RPC1.

It's likely the PowerBooks will (eventually) get the UJ-825, but I doubt it will be RPC1-able for quite some time.

It took a LONG time before my TiBook's UJ-815 got an RPC1 firmware. Fortunately, X101 now exists for it:

ae86_16v · Mar 30, 2004, 01:23 PM

Yeah that will definitely be nice if they had 4x drives. But what about the heat?

My 2x Drive right now gets quite hot already, especially if I burn back to back disc.

Think about how hot it'll be in a 12" AlBook.

Waragainstsleep · Mar 30, 2004, 01:41 PM

My 815B doesn't get hot. Maybe its just the G4s. (Mine's in a G3)

Eug Wanker · Mar 30, 2004, 02:15 PM

Originally posted by ae86_16v:
Yeah that will definitely be nice if they had 4x drives. But what about the heat?

My 2x Drive right now gets quite hot already, especially if I burn back to back disc.

Think about how hot it'll be in a 12" AlBook.

My G4 1 GHz TiBook with 2X-enabled SuperDrive gets a bit warm but not hot when burning DVDs.

Eug Wanker · 04:00 PM

Japanese page translated: Matshita UJ-820/825

So, now that the new PowerBooks are out and DO support 4X DVD-R burning, I bumped this thread. Presumably these are the drives used in the new PowerBooks, since AFAIK, the UJ-825 is the only slot-load 4X laptop burner available.

I hope Apple doesn't downspec their functionality. These drives support:

4X DVD-R
2X DVD-RW
2X DVD-RAM
2.4X DVD+R
2.4X DVD+RW
16X CD-R
8X CD-RW

Apple did downspec the UJ-815 when it first came out in the SuperDrive TiBooks. They shipped a UJ-815 with a custom Apple firmware with 1X DVD-R write support and no DVD-R write support, because of rumoured flakiness of the drive with DVD-RW and 2X DVD-R. And the drives still don't support DVD-RAM at all even though the hardware itself does. (I've since enabled 2X DVD-R and 1X DVD-RW, as well as all region support, with a firmware hack, but DVD-RAM still is not supported.)

I'm pretty sure Apple will remove DVD-RAM functionality with the UJ-815

but I'm not sure if they'll remove +R/W functionality. The UJ-815 only supported -R/W, but the UJ-825 supports both + and -. People are saying with their new Mac desktops, they can burn + media, so at least there Apple isn't crippling the firmware.

Tomster · Apr 19, 2004, 05:19 PM

So is there any way for a consumer to get hold of a single unit and do the self install, or are the units available only for bulk purchase?

Looking at the new Powerbooks, I really don't need the extra 167 Mhz, would like but do not need the extra 64MB of vram, but would love to save 15 minutes per burn.

Eug Wanker · Apr 19, 2004, 05:24 PM

Originally posted by Tomster:
So is there any way for a consumer to get hold of a single unit and do the self install, or are the units available only for bulk purchase?

Looking at the new Powerbooks, I really don't need the extra 167 Mhz, would like but do not need the extra 64MB of vram, but would love to save 15 minutes per burn.

Fly to Japan.

This place claims to be getting the UJ-825-B soon. Not sure if it's worth US$279 to go from 2X DVD-R to 4X DVD-R though, and it's there's no guarantee that Apple software will play nice with it (although it will likely work fine with Toast).

You could always get an external Firewire 8X DVD burner for cheap, and just keep the internal 2X burner.

Tomster · Apr 19, 2004, 05:43 PM

I just found them via google. Interesting thing is they are selling a unit on ebay. Think it is up to 190. Not sure if I'm going to bite at this price range. For almost $300, I can flip my existing unit and buy a new one. Not the most practical of solutions of course.

Eug Wanker · Apr 20, 2004, 11:21 AM

The other thing, if it matters to you, is there is no region free solution to the UJ-825 yet obviously.

I hope that if the UJ-825 is still being used when G5 PowerBooks come out, a region free firmware will be able for it.

Tomster · Apr 20, 2004, 11:35 AM

I don't think RPC1 is as big of a problem as it use to be. It is a bit time consuming, but one can always rip and re-encode a dvd pretty quickly. No more region locked DVD!

bamchum · Apr 20, 2004, 12:30 PM

Originally posted by Tomster:
I don't think RPC1 is as big of a problem as it use to be. It is a bit time consuming, but one can always rip and re-encode a dvd pretty quickly. No more region locked DVD!

It is less of an issue than it was but it is not true that "one can always rip and re-encode a dvd." MacTheRipper has lots of problems with certain out-of-region disks (I've got at least two that it can't rip) and VLC won't play out of region on the UJ-816 drive.

Firmware upgrades have really been the only way for aluminum powerbook owners. It remains to be seen what this new drive is and how MacTheRipper and VLC interact with it.

Eug Wanker · Apr 26, 2004, 12:44 AM

Anyone try + media yet on the new 1.33 12" or 1.5 GHz PowerBooks? Are the drives the UJ-825 as suspected?

I suspect the drive can read + media, but I wonder if the drives can write to that media (in Toast), or if Apple has removed this functionality in the firmware.

Not that it really matters though. While DVD+RW support would be nice, DVD-RAM support would be more useful IMO.