They may add the dual layer burner, but someone in here said that the DVD's burned by dual layer burners are only playable on 1% of home DVD players. It's almost unlike Apple to add something that isn't going to be compatible with your home viewing.
At Least the single layer DVDs are still burnable on them which gives it a glimmer of hope. I wouldn't doubt it if it became a BTO option though. The Pioneer DVR-108 Dual Layer Burner is Available now, and Pioneer is who has always made the Superdrive.
HP claims their prototype drive produced discs that only worked in 40% of DVD players on the market, though I'm not sure how they came to that conclusion.
Pioneer is not the exclusive supplier of Superdrives to Apple. LG-Hitachi was tapped as a supplier for a while. The notebooks use Matsushita/Panasonic drives. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple was also using Lite-On or Sony on a limited basis.
Anyway, I just ordered a Pioneer DVR-108 today (even though it's one of the slower 16x drives on the market.) If anything interesting crops up, I'll be sure to mention.
When you're talking about built-in graphics chipsets and Tiger, you have to look well beyond framerates. Tiger will use the programmable aspects of a video card heavily. Given that, an NVIDIA FX 5200 is actually better than an ATI 9600, just because it's as or more programmable and less expensive. The 9600 can do some simple things faster than the 5200, but the 5200 can do the things that Tiger will attempt (much) faster than the 9600.
Tiger, like DOOM 3, will use circuits that have essentially lain dormant on GPUs for years, so conventional measures of what is a "weak" or "slow" card don't really apply. The FX5200 can't be considered a barn-burner by any measure, but anemic support for programmable shaders beats no support for programmable shaders (in which case the work gets punted to the CPU).
In other words, there is a method to Apple's madness in leaning on the FX 5200. They're not just doing it to be cheap.
I trust that the GPU that Apple puts in the iMac will be able to do whatever Tiger requires of it, given the built-in screen. It might not turn in the highest frame rates in the latest games, but it will acquit itself, and at least it won't punt system functionality back to the CPU the way that a card optimized for conventional video games will.
Normally I would agree with you AMorph... but at the CoreImage WWDC Sessions they told us the 9600 was a better choice for tiger than the 5200.
I still fail to see how having a 9600xt vs. a 5200 is a bad thing. The 5200 can not handle programmable shaders that well. If we are talking about a 5900 ultra I would agree. But just because a card has the option doesn't mean it will perform well with it.
.....In other words, there is a method to Apple's madness in leaning on the FX 5200. They're not just doing it to be cheap.
I trust that the GPU that Apple puts in the iMac will be able to do whatever Tiger requires of it, given the built-in screen. It might not turn in the highest frame rates in the latest games, but it will acquit itself, and at least it won't punt system functionality back to the CPU the way that a card optimized for conventional video games will.
Thank you for this information. Very informative.
Just hypothetically speaking, if the new iMac has a standard video card slot, AGP 8x, with the base configuration being the FX 5200, but offered the same $50 upgrade path to the ATI Radeon 9600 XT currently offered in the towers, would you upgrade this hypothetical iMac to the ATI Radeon 9600 XT?
Well one thing to consider really is that if you look at the old iMac G4's that Apple still posts specs for in their online store, the top two have the 5200 with 64MB vram. With an "all new" design, it would seem strange in my opinion to just leave those cards as being the same. I think they'll have it in the lowend model, and then for the top two models they'll have a better card, hopefully with 128mb vram (and it'd be nice to have somehow the option like in the powerbook to order one with even more vram). It seems stranger to me that apple introduced "new" g5's that had old, old iMac cards in them....
They may add the dual layer burner, but someone in here said that the DVD's burned by dual layer burners are only playable on 1% of home DVD players. It's almost unlike Apple to add something that isn't going to be compatible with your home viewing.
I wonder where they got that figure. I have seen a few posts (not here, other forums) stating 100% compatiblity at their homes (everything from the PS2, to computer drives, to standard dvd players). I am not implying that there is 100% compatibility, but it is definatly better than the 1% figure you are quoting (sounds like FUD to me).
Here is a small list of what I could quickly find. First is the dvd player, and the yes or no is wether it played the DVD+R DL disk)
Sony PS2 games Console - Yes
Bush 2520 - Yes
Yukai DVD Player - Yes
Aiwa XPD-15 - Yes
Toshiba SD 125E - Yes
LG DV1000 DVD\\VIDEO Combo - Yes
Apex AD 2500 - Yes
Pioneer DV-563A - Yes
Yamaha DV-S2300 - Yes
Sony RDR GX3 DVD Home Recorder - No
Cyberhome 512 - No
Technics SL-DV250 - No
Right here is 67% (much better than the 1% figure, and even better than the 40% figure). I could easily have inflated this by adding countless computer drives, as all of them tested by anandtech played dvd+r dl media fine ((link, 3rd paragraph marked "update")).
The new 2.4x DVD+R media nearly doubles the storage capacity on DVD recordable discs from 4.7GB to 8.5GB on a single side while maintaining compatibility with existing DVD video players and DVD-ROM drives
Comments
Originally posted by onlooker
They may add the dual layer burner, but someone in here said that the DVD's burned by dual layer burners are only playable on 1% of home DVD players. It's almost unlike Apple to add something that isn't going to be compatible with your home viewing.
At Least the single layer DVDs are still burnable on them which gives it a glimmer of hope. I wouldn't doubt it if it became a BTO option though. The Pioneer DVR-108 Dual Layer Burner is Available now, and Pioneer is who has always made the Superdrive.
HP claims their prototype drive produced discs that only worked in 40% of DVD players on the market, though I'm not sure how they came to that conclusion.
Pioneer is not the exclusive supplier of Superdrives to Apple. LG-Hitachi was tapped as a supplier for a while. The notebooks use Matsushita/Panasonic drives. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple was also using Lite-On or Sony on a limited basis.
Anyway, I just ordered a Pioneer DVR-108 today (even though it's one of the slower 16x drives on the market.) If anything interesting crops up, I'll be sure to mention.
A Radeon 9600 Pro is not bad but it is in a computer costing 3 grand.
The nVidia FX 5200 is a truly pathetic card of epic proportions.
That means it will be in the new iMacs.
They aren't called superdrives any more
Tiger, like DOOM 3, will use circuits that have essentially lain dormant on GPUs for years, so conventional measures of what is a "weak" or "slow" card don't really apply. The FX5200 can't be considered a barn-burner by any measure, but anemic support for programmable shaders beats no support for programmable shaders (in which case the work gets punted to the CPU).
In other words, there is a method to Apple's madness in leaning on the FX 5200. They're not just doing it to be cheap.
I trust that the GPU that Apple puts in the iMac will be able to do whatever Tiger requires of it, given the built-in screen. It might not turn in the highest frame rates in the latest games, but it will acquit itself, and at least it won't punt system functionality back to the CPU the way that a card optimized for conventional video games will.
I still fail to see how having a 9600xt vs. a 5200 is a bad thing. The 5200 can not handle programmable shaders that well. If we are talking about a 5900 ultra I would agree. But just because a card has the option doesn't mean it will perform well with it.
Originally posted by Amorph
.....In other words, there is a method to Apple's madness in leaning on the FX 5200. They're not just doing it to be cheap.
I trust that the GPU that Apple puts in the iMac will be able to do whatever Tiger requires of it, given the built-in screen. It might not turn in the highest frame rates in the latest games, but it will acquit itself, and at least it won't punt system functionality back to the CPU the way that a card optimized for conventional video games will.
Thank you for this information. Very informative.
Just hypothetically speaking, if the new iMac has a standard video card slot, AGP 8x, with the base configuration being the FX 5200, but offered the same $50 upgrade path to the ATI Radeon 9600 XT currently offered in the towers, would you upgrade this hypothetical iMac to the ATI Radeon 9600 XT?
Is the extra $50 worth it?
Another way of looking at the situation.....
Originally posted by onlooker
They may add the dual layer burner, but someone in here said that the DVD's burned by dual layer burners are only playable on 1% of home DVD players. It's almost unlike Apple to add something that isn't going to be compatible with your home viewing.
I wonder where they got that figure. I have seen a few posts (not here, other forums) stating 100% compatiblity at their homes (everything from the PS2, to computer drives, to standard dvd players). I am not implying that there is 100% compatibility, but it is definatly better than the 1% figure you are quoting (sounds like FUD to me).
Here is a small list of what I could quickly find. First is the dvd player, and the yes or no is wether it played the DVD+R DL disk)
Sony PS2 games Console - Yes
Bush 2520 - Yes
Yukai DVD Player - Yes
Aiwa XPD-15 - Yes
Toshiba SD 125E - Yes
LG DV1000 DVD\\VIDEO Combo - Yes
Apex AD 2500 - Yes
Pioneer DV-563A - Yes
Yamaha DV-S2300 - Yes
Sony RDR GX3 DVD Home Recorder - No
Cyberhome 512 - No
Technics SL-DV250 - No
Right here is 67% (much better than the 1% figure, and even better than the 40% figure). I could easily have inflated this by adding countless computer drives, as all of them tested by anandtech played dvd+r dl media fine ((link, 3rd paragraph marked "update")).
And here is a press release from Imation (link, 4th paragraph) :
Imation DVD+R DL media maintains playback compatibility with existing DVD video players and DVD-ROM drives
And one from Verbatim (link, 2nd paragraph):
The new 2.4x DVD+R media nearly doubles the storage capacity on DVD recordable discs from 4.7GB to 8.5GB on a single side while maintaining compatibility with existing DVD video players and DVD-ROM drives