SuperDrive 2

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Unlike the CD drives standard, in which CD Drives evolves by not only getting faster, and its standards have also being raised from CD-R to CDRW. THe Superdrive, on the other hand, did not get any better? DVD recordable standards are also becoming so confusing these days. Does anyone knows whats the difference and why do Apple choose DVD-R? Why not DVD-RW and DVD+RW?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 15
    IIRC, DVDRW is physically possible on the SuperDrive and Mac OS X 10.2 will unlock this feature.
  • Reply 2 of 15
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    The SuperDrive did get faster. And the Pioneer DVR-103 and DVR-104 drives that ship with Apple computers support DVD-RW out of the box now.



    There are 3 standards duking it out right now.



    1) DVD-RAM (Panasonic, Toshiba, Hitachi) was the first on the block. It got out to an early lead but its clumsy cartridges and incompatibility with most DVD players made it a bad choice for anything but data back-ups and such. DVD-RAM functions like any other removable media. you drag and drop files like you would on a floppy disk.



    2) DVD-R/DVD-RW came much later. It's a Pioneer developed standard that works a lot like current CD-R and CD-RWs. You can burn data to these discs in sessions, but it;s not on the fly like with DVD-RAM. DVD-R media will generally be compatible with most DVD players. DVD-RW will be compatible with more modern players.



    3) DVD+RW is from HP, Sony, Ricoh and a few others. It offers both compatibility and random-access by switching between CLV and CAV burning methods. The problem with DVD+RW is that it's very late to the party.
  • Reply 3 of 15
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    [quote]Originally posted by discstickers:

    <strong>IIRC, DVDRW is physically possible on the SuperDrive and Mac OS X 10.2 will unlock this feature.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Some of the older DVR-103 drives may need a firmware update to support DVD-RW burning.



    EDIT: I just checked and perhaps this isn't necessary. Can somebody confirm this?



    [ 02-14-2002: Message edited by: Eugene ]</p>
  • Reply 4 of 15
    Much discussion on <a href="http://www.xlr8yourmac.com"; target="_blank">www.xlr8yourmac.com</a> on this very topic. AFAIK, DVD-RW is possible on all Superidrives...



    [quote]Originally posted by Eugene:

    <strong>



    Some of the older DVR-103 drives may need a firmware update to support DVD-RW burning.



    EDIT: I just checked and perhaps this isn't necessary. Can somebody confirm this?



    [ 02-14-2002: Message edited by: Eugene ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
  • Reply 5 of 15
    spartspart Posts: 2,060member
    What does AFAIK mean?
  • Reply 6 of 15
    Eugene



    Can u please explain what is CLV and CAV burning methods?
  • Reply 7 of 15
    [quote]Originally posted by Spart:

    <strong>What does AFAIK mean?</strong><hr></blockquote>

    As Far As I Know
  • Reply 8 of 15
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    <a href="http://www4.tomshardware.com/storage/01q4/011213/cdrw-02.html"; target="_blank">It's a bit tough to explain</a>



    CAV results in fewer errors / gaps between data as CLV stops the burning process to throttle up for each zone. CLV is generally required for writing data on-the-fly since it is a stop and go process. CAV is better for mastering a DVD Video since you want as few gaps and links as possible to ensure it will work flawlessly in a DVD player.
  • Reply 9 of 15
    vr6vr6 Posts: 77member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eugene:

    <strong>

    There are 3 standards duking it out right now.



    1) DVD-RAM (Panasonic, Toshiba, Hitachi) was the first on the block. It got out to an early lead but its clumsy cartridges and incompatibility with most DVD players made it a bad choice for anything but data back-ups and such. DVD-RAM functions like any other removable media. you drag and drop files like you would on a floppy disk.



    2) DVD-R/DVD-RW came much later. It's a Pioneer developed standard that works a lot like current CD-R and CD-RWs. You can burn data to these discs in sessions, but it;s not on the fly like with DVD-RAM. DVD-R media will generally be compatible with most DVD players. DVD-RW will be compatible with more modern players.



    3) DVD+RW is from HP, Sony, Ricoh and a few others. It offers both compatibility and random-access by switching between CLV and CAV burning methods. The problem with DVD+RW is that it's very late to the party.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    There are three issues - price, performance and functionality.

    Whether or not DVD+RW is a little late, HP's drives are selling retail here in Canada for $750CDN or $500USD. The dealer cost must therefore be at least $50USD Cheaper. This is at least good for Apple as they can likely negotiate a better price with Pioneer, but who knows if they'll pass it along to us consumers.
  • Reply 10 of 15
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    DVD+RW could very well come out on top as long as it's priced right.



    Dell is selling it for $389 USD more than a 16x/10x/40x CD-RW drive as a BTO option.



    You can find bare Pioneer DVR-A03s for $350. You can find Sony and HP DVD+RW drives for $425. It's pretty close...



    Both are still nascent technologies as far as most of us are concerned anyway...
  • Reply 11 of 15
    Lacie, using a pioneer mechanism, also has a DVD RAM, DVD-R/RW. That's what I just bough as it made little sense to wait for a DVD/ CD burner combo to get up to speed, specially when a 16x yamaha internal burner can be had for $150. Besides DVD RAM although I wouldn't recomend burning a DVD that was meant to be read on anything but the lates consumer DVD's is far easier to use for data than either a DVDR or RW, a bit faster too though I'm really not sure why. One thing worth mentioning is that although Lacie's web site makes no mention of compatability with DVD studio it does work with V1.25. I also liked the price, under 600 bucks for an external FW. Highly compatible with mac os 9.1 & 9.2 No xtra drivers to install at all. Even comes with a full version of retrospect, (way cool)



    A single drive sounds nice but if you can get twice the performance from two, for far less money why wait for the silly combo. I don't think Apple nailed it withe the combo drive, it's cool (specially the previously undocumented, unadvertised (why?) dvd rw feature) but the cd feature is way to slow.
  • Reply 12 of 15
    [quote]Originally posted by tiramisubomb:

    <strong>Eugene



    Can u please explain what is CLV and CAV burning methods?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Constant Linear Velocity (i.e. the data surface passes the read / write mechanism at a constant speed - this is what CDs originally used) and Constant Angular Velocity (i.e. the discs rotate at a constant revolution rate - this is what hard disks traditionally use).



    I don't really see how this relates to session-based vs. sector-based writing, though...



    Bye,

    RazzFazz
  • Reply 13 of 15
    cdhostagecdhostage Posts: 1,038member
    There IS a new SuperDrive. Check out the specs on the newest PowerMac and the new iMac. It's the A04, not the old A03. Dunno how much faster it is.
  • Reply 14 of 15
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    cdhostage, the only change I see is that it reads DVDs at 6x instead of 4x.
  • Reply 15 of 15
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