Better Superdrives in Macs and Powerbooks

flashgordon · July 31, 2002 8:48AM

According to the Inquirer Apple will be releasing revamped faster Superdrives (4x DVD-R and 12x CD-R) in the next two months along with a Superdrive Powerbook. According to the article the drives will also be much less expensive.

This should be really cool and no doubt will be a shot in the arm for Apples Hardware. I am sure there is work now on a upgrade for older tibooks right now. Anyways, thats the news and I am outta here.

miami craig · July 31, 2002 8:53AM

This is great news, and i do believe its been long enough since the original superdrive made it's debut. I for one have only burned one DVD of video, and it took a really long time, but it really didnt matter because i was just so amazed i was actually burning a DVD

.

fran441 · July 31, 2002 8:59AM

12x CDR is unacceptable when 40x burners are now out. I've even seen 'superdrives' with 24x so how can we be expected to settle for 12?

aquatic · July 31, 2002 9:07AM

*sigh* poor Fran. You're right. But I'm stuck with a 4x Combo drive in my iBook!

Also, don't Apple's CD drives still read at 24X? I've heard CD-ROMs are over twice that speed. I heard Apple uses 24X to keep the price down. Well, considering their prices... ( <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" /> ) they might as well have modern CD-ROM speeds as well as SuperDrive speeds. If the only updates the PowerMacs recieve are SuperDrive upgrades to where they should be already, they'll see a really really bad next quarter.

sebian · July 31, 2002 9:10AM

Hi Fran!

Where have you seen a 24x 'Superdrive'? Did you mean Combodrive? I think 12x is great for an optical drive that can burn DVDs, too.

I heard that DVD+RW drives are faster but they're seldom compatible to standard DVD Players and you have to pay a lot more per medium (at least over here in Germany...)

viele grüße

Seb

matsu · July 31, 2002 9:11AM

But does it take as long to burn a data DVD? Is it the source to MPEG-2 conversion that takes an unbareably long time (aswell) or just the burning? An improvement in either one of these areas would make homeDVD a much more pleasant experience.

If you can leave discs open (for data, or even additional video sessions) then 4X DVD-R isn't that bad. 1X DVD is about 11Mbps or roughly equivalent to 9x CDR. So you're getting the same 'speed' out of a 4X DVD burn as you would out of a 36X CD burn. That's actually quite fast for a mainstream consumer optical technology. It's just that the disc is so big.

In 18 months when we start seeing the first 8X DVD burners, we'll be archiving data at almost 90Mbps (or the equivalent of a 72X CD-R burn.)

I haven't ever made a DVD-R, but it seems to me that some of this capacity would be wasted on DVD-R because discs are still expensive and you'll not want to waste them unless you're going to fill it completely. I wonder what the multi-session performance/reliability of these drives is like??? Is it practical? Can you do it? Do other DVD drives understand it? It might be more crucial for DVD-rw to provide parity in their 'RW' performance, so that people can take advantage of upcoming speeds for DATA back-up without having to go through piles of expensive discs. Also, cheaper 8cm media, would mean less waste.

Of course this is all moot if DVD-r media makes a rapid price drop in the way CD-r has done.

flashgordon · July 31, 2002 9:14AM

The upgrade is quite a bit over the current Superdrive (2x DVD and 8x CD-R). Lets see a link that has a Superdrive running 24x, because I have not seen one. If they do exist I am sure there is a reason they aren't used, probably cost or size, or power demand. Besides I am more happy that the drive will be in the new Powerbook and old ones via a likely upgrade option. So while I am sure you would rather have a 400x DVD burner and a 1000x CD burner that cost $19.95, why don't we all just settle for a signifigant upgrade and lower costs rather than bitching about everything Apple delivers...rant over.

fran441 · July 31, 2002 9:46AM

[quote]Where have you seen a 24x 'Superdrive'? Did you mean Combodrive? I think 12x is great for an optical drive that can burn DVDs, too.

<hr></blockquote>

I was mistaken. As far as 'Superdrives' go, 8x looks to be the fastest now. It was a different type of DVD writer that claimed faster CD burns. <img src="graemlins/embarrassed.gif" border="0" alt="[Embarrassed]" />

wfzelle · July 31, 2002 10:47AM

[quote]Originally posted by Aquatik:

Also, don't Apple's CD drives still read at 24X? I've heard CD-ROMs are over twice that speed. I heard Apple uses 24X to keep the price down.<hr></blockquote>

I'd pay extra to have a slow CD-ROM. Those 50x sound like a 747 is landing in your backyard and take half an hour to get up to speed. And of course, they still only reach 50x at the very edge of the disc. It's more like 16x at the center. All in all, the average over a whole disc isn't that great either.

BTW, the same goes for CD-R's. How much time do you save when you burn at more than 8x? Especially when you can burn in the background it doesn't really matter. Of course, those 40x burners have an immense error-rate. I wouldn't trust my backups to be safe.

[ 07-31-2002: Message edited by: wfzelle ]

alcimedes · July 31, 2002 10:53AM

you save a lot of time burning at speeds like 40x when making cd's. think 2 min. instead of 5 when making an 80 min. cd.

not a huge deal, but if you're making 20 of them it adds up.

however, i have found through personal experience that many cd's burned that quickly are no longer readable by lower-end audio cd players. computers read them just fine.

just a thought on why there might be a speed limitation on them.

fran441 · July 31, 2002 11:29AM

From MacNN:

Pioneer expects to launch a recordable DVD drive for notebook PCs in the fourth quarter, according to c|net. The drive will read and re-write DVD discs at 2X speed, record CDs at 16X speed and rewrite CDs at 10X speed.

eotku · July 31, 2002 5:27PM

____you save a lot of time burning at speeds like 40x when making cd's. think 2 min. instead of 5 when making an 80 min. cd.

______________

What type of CD's can you burn at that speed? We just purchased an internal 40x burner for a PC but we have been unable to burn disc's at anything faster than 12x without a buffer underun.This holds true for copying, or burning from a disc image. The drive we are using has the largest (8mg) buffer we could find and that still doesn't help. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

animaniac · July 31, 2002 5:40PM

Don't the new PowerMac's have two 5.25" drie bays... I would like to have a fast DVD/CD-RW combo drive and a DVD-R(W) dirve for the other bay.

eugene · July 31, 2002 7:27PM

Nobody can burn a CD in 2 minutes, not even with a 40x drive. Every single drive faster than 16x is actually 16x on the inner tracks, 20x on the next segment, 24x on the next and so on and so on until you reach 40 or so. You start at 16x, the spindle slows down to maintain 16x in one segment, then it reaches the next segment, stops, speeds up to 20s, then decelerates slowly to maintain 20x for that section...

Even worse, most of these drives have terrible POH (life expectancy.)

My 24x burner takes about 6 minutes to burn a CD from cache buffering to closing the CD. My DVR-104 takes probably 10 minutes.

ptzwon · July 31, 2002 7:53PM

I am proud to say that since I received my iMac 800 in February, I have burned approximately 30 video DVDs. About 20 of those were copies of my senior video that I gave out for graduatioin presents. (I took everyones senior and baby pictures and some footage from out childhood and made it into a movie that was played for commencement). Other DVDs have been for school organizations and functions, and I recorded and burned one wedding.

My feeling is...if you have the capability and the interest why not use it.

By the way: I want to buy and PowerBook for college, but I don't want to jump in with a few thousand bucks when something new with superior specs will be coming out for the same price. What is the current consensus view on when the update will occur. (I haven't had time to scour the boards)

Thanks,

Peter

matsu · July 31, 2002 9:05PM

Just take the iMac with you and don't bother with buying a notebook untill you settle in to your classes. The iMac is a very new machine yet, and any powerbook you buy will not give you a really dramatic boost in speed (not even the next rev). You want to wait untill they at least double the performance of your current machine, and offer more features. Apple might actually get its house in order by next year. Buy a 'book' then.

ptzwon · August 1, 2002 7:07PM

Thanks Matsu, but the problem is that this iMac isn't truly mine. It belongs to my parents. My thinking is that I could convince them to loan it to me for a couple of months until they update the powerbook.

Make no mistake, I would be perfectly happy with this iMac. I'm not one of those people who goes crazy if they don't have the newest hardware.

Peter

paul · August 1, 2002 10:18PM

[quote]Originally posted by ptzwon:

Thanks Matsu, but the problem is that this iMac isn't truly mine. It belongs to my parents. My thinking is that I could convince them to loan it to me for a couple of months until they update the powerbook.

Make no mistake, I would be perfectly happy with this iMac. I'm not one of those people who goes crazy if they don't have the newest hardware.

Peter<hr></blockquote>

Its funny that we are in the exact same situation... im going to be oaning my brother's new imac until the PBs are updated.... oh and i will be using the uperdrive to burn copies of my class's spring break trip <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />

Better Superdrives in Macs and Powerbooks

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