Apple not selling 2x DVD-Rs anymore?

dr. john zoidberg · April 13, 2004 10:08AM

I was looking at the Apple Store online and at my local SoHo retail store, and I've noticed that they don't sell 2x DVD-R's anymore. They only stock 4x and 8x discs, now. Since my PowerBook's SuperDrive is a 2x drive, won't this be a problem since 2x drives only burn 4x and 8x media at 1x speed?

This is taken from the Apple Store on the 4x and 8x media product page:

Quote:

A 2x SuperDrive writes to 4x and 8x media at 1x, so to obtain the fastest DVD recording performance for your 2x SuperDrive, we recommend using 2x DVD-R media to write at full 2x DVD-R speed.

cam'ron · April 13, 2004 11:42AM

does it really only burn at 1x? wouldnt it be like cd-r's where if its a faster cd you just set it to the spee you have? that would make a whole lot more sense.

dr. john zoidberg · April 13, 2004 11:50AM

If I did my research correctly, a 2x SuperDrive will burn 2x media at 2x speed. But, a 2x SuperDrive will burn 4x and 8x media only at 1x speed.

ast3r3x · April 13, 2004 3:19PM

I agree with Cam'ron, but it does you did quote exactly the opposite of what I thought. Maybe it's just that Apple's media isn't multi-speed? I seem to remember them showing on some media how fast it can burn...like the different speeds, but I never looked or even cared much, I just assumed it was like what Cam'ron said and as long as the media was faster then the burner it didn't matter.

luca · April 13, 2004 4:28PM

Just because Apple doesn't sell them doesn't mean they're not available. Apple charges way too much for their media. I'm not saying to go cheap on DVD media, but $10 for five 4x discs is pretty expensive. Besides, you don't have to buy from Apple for your media.

I do find it strange that they don't sell 2x media even though the PowerBooks have 2x DVD-R drives. They should keep it available from their own store as long as they are selling Macs with 2x drives.

EDIT: DVD media is weird. With CD-R media, you can buy stuff rated for 52x and burn it at 32x in a 32x drive. Even buy 52x media and burn it at 16x in a 24x drive. With DVD media, though, the media's rated speed has to be less than or equal to your burner's speed, otherwise it burns at 1x. You can burn slower media at a slower speed in a fast drive (i.e. 4x media in an 8x drive at 4x).

nrrhgreg · April 18, 2004 9:57PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dr. John Zoidberg

I was looking at the Apple Store online and at my local SoHo retail store, and I've noticed that they don't sell 2x DVD-R's anymore. They only stock 4x and 8x discs, now. Since my PowerBook's SuperDrive is a 2x drive, won't this be a problem since 2x drives only burn 4x and 8x media at 1x speed?

This is taken from the Apple Store on the 4x and 8x media product page:

I have some Ritek 4x DVD -R disks that I bought before I had the Mac, and they burn at 2x using Toast.

drumsticks · April 23, 2004 4:29AM

This might be silly, but how do you know how fast the disc (CD or DVD) is ACTUALLY burning if you are using the built-in burner in Finder or any of the iApps?

proxy · April 24, 2004 4:11PM

Yeah.. I was pretty annoyed that apple dropped the 2X media. Why? Well I've bought quite a few batches of 2x branded media and I can't get it to burn at anything other than 1x. That adds up to a huge time penalty when I'm doing a load of DVD's. In fact it's so rubbish that it'll probably push me to get a newer imac when they get the 8X drives in them... Hey! Maybe that's Apples ploy

kneelbeforezod · April 26, 2004 3:10PM

Does anyone know of any other 2x DVD-R options that will work in an older Superdrive? I'm using a 1ghz TiBook and I don't mind the long burn time so much (I'm just backing up data), but I'd rather not pay the Apple store markup for blank discs that are not 100% compatible...

aquatic · April 27, 2004 1:44PM

Quote:

EDIT: DVD media is weird. With CD-R media, you can buy stuff rated for 52x and burn it at 32x in a 32x drive. Even buy 52x media and burn it at 16x in a 24x drive. With DVD media, though, the media's rated speed has to be less than or equal to your burner's speed, otherwise it burns at 1x. You can burn slower media at a slower speed in a fast drive (i.e. 4x media in an 8x drive at 4x)

Not true! I burn 4x DVD-Rs at 2x all the time in my PowerBook G4 12" 867mhz. Don't know if it's related to the fact that I needed a firmware patch to make it go from 1x to 2x.

rickag · May 26, 2004 5:16PM

Quote:

Originally posted by drumsticks

This might be silly, but how do you know how fast the disc (CD or DVD) is ACTUALLY burning if you are using the built-in burner in Finder or any of the iApps?

Your not alone, I have the same question.

pbg4 dude · May 27, 2004 8:37AM

Data size / time to burn = bits per second

Look up DVD speed specs. See where your calculated bps falls.

rickag · May 27, 2004 12:23PM

Quote:

Originally posted by PBG4 Dude

Data size / time to burn = bits per second

Look up DVD speed specs. See where your calculated bps falls.

I can't find the spec.'s for bps for my Model

tMATSHITA DVD-R UJ-816

Revision

tDXJ3. Did a google and looked on Apple's site but alas I couldn't find the information.

pbg4 dude · May 27, 2004 1:03PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rickag

I can't find the spec.'s for bps for my ModeltMATSHITA DVD-R UJ-816

RevisiontDXJ3. Did a google and looked on Apple's site but alas I couldn't find the information.

From http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#4.2

Code:

DVD drive speed Data rate Disc write time*

Equivalent CD rate CD reading speed

1x 11.08 Mbps (1.32 MB/s) 53 min. 9x 8x-18x

2x 22.16 Mbps (2.64 MB/s) 27 min. 18x 20x-24x

4x 44.32 Mbps (5.28 MB/s) 14 min. 36x 24x-32x

5x 55.40 Mbps (6.60 MB/s) 11 min. 45x 24x-32x

6x 66.48 Mbps (7.93 MB/s) 9 min. 54x 24x-32x

8x 88.64 Mbps (10.57 MB/s) 7 min. 72x 32x-40x

10x 110.80 Mbps (13.21 MB/s) 6 min. 90x 32x-40x

16x 177.28 Mbps (21.13 MB/s) 4 min. 144x 32x-40x

* "Disc write time" is the approximate theoretical time it takes to write a DVD-5, which doesn't include software overhead, time to write leadout, etc.

rickag · May 28, 2004 8:30AM

PBG4 Dude

Thank you very much for the information, now I'm off to my calculator.

Just curious, would you recommend any DVD-R media for my 2x Superdrive, since Apple no longer sells 2x DVD-R media?

pbg4 dude · May 28, 2004 8:50AM

Quote:

Originally posted by rickag

PBG4 Dude

Thank you very much for the information, now I'm off to my calculator.

Just curious, would you recommend any DVD-R media for my 2x Superdrive, since Apple no longer sells 2x DVD-R media?

rickag

Glad I could help!

I've only used Apple labeled 2X media so I'm in the same boat as you are.

\

Hopefully someone will come in and recommend some good 2X media.

rickag · May 28, 2004 9:37AM

I posted over at Arstechnica in a thread asking for any help, but I revived a thread over 30 days old and it was locked, opps. I tried again by posting a new topic, hope there are some suggestions posted.

tomb · May 28, 2004 1:20PM

I also found it strange that Apple's firmware only allows 4x media to be burnt at 1x. It just doesn't make sense. The same drive with the official Pioneer firmware burns 4x media at 2x. You can see it by looking at this chart from Pioneer;

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pi..._2004Feb20.pdf

You can remedy the situation. Flash your drive to the Official Pioneer firmware. The recent OSX flasher can be used to flash to Official Pioneer firmware as well as the hacked version of firmware. Or just use Toast. Of course, with the 8x burning DVR-107 selling for less than $100, you might be tempted to just upgrade

The Firmware Site

PowerBook Firmware

I added this for the PowerBook people, however let it be known, I have never flashed a PowerBook's firmware

rickag · May 28, 2004 3:54PM

TomB

Thanks for posting this information. It may help out a lot of people, but I have a Matshita drive. Oh, well, I guess I'll try some third party DVD-R media this weekend. I'll try and report back results in this thread.

tomb · May 28, 2004 11:46PM

Yep, I saw that you have the 816. And, I added that PowerBook Firmware link just for you

\

I really don't see where you have a problem. The 816 should burn Apples 4x media at 2x without any alteration. Apple's 4x media is the same price as the old 2x media. Therefore, you can burn as you always did for the same price. Now those with the 815 would see a benefit with the new firmware as it would enable 2x burning. Really, the way I see it, the only people affected by the 'burn 4x at 1x' are those with the Apple Pioneer Desktop Superdrives 103 and 104 with the Apple firmware.

rickag · June 1, 2004 1:01PM

Quote:

Originally posted by TomB

Yep, I saw that you have the 816. And, I added that PowerBook Firmware link just for you \

I really don't see where you have a problem. The 816 should burn Apples 4x media at 2x without any alteration. Apple's 4x media is the same price as the old 2x media. Therefore, you can burn as you always did for the same price. Now those with the 815 would see a benefit with the new firmware as it would enable 2x burning. Really, the way I see it, the only people affected by the 'burn 4x at 1x' are those with the Apple Pioneer Desktop Superdrives 103 and 104 with the Apple firmware.

Oh great googly moogly. I read your reply too late. Saturday I went to Fry's to look for 2x media, no luck there. So I went to Compusa and the Apple rep recommended their 2x media and said it was made by TDK. At $40 for 50 2x DVD-R blanks, I thought what the heck and bought them.

I burned a home video on one of them and they seem to work OK. Hope I didn't buy a package of 50 potential problems.

Forgot to ask, if Apple's 4x media will in fact burn @ 2x speeds in my superdrive, why would Apple add that disclaimer in the "learn more about this product" section for their 4x media. Specifically they state that owners of the 2x Superdrives should use 2x media because their 4x media will only burn a2 1x speeds in these drives.

Apple not selling 2x DVD-Rs anymore?

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