Powerbook 1GHz Superdrive DVDR or RW?

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Hello everyone, new to this board, just a quick question. I have a PowerMac G4 Dual 800MHz, with superdrive, and I know that Apple does not publicly say that the superdrive in it is DVD-RW, but infact it is. What I was wondering is, I have just purchased a Powerbook G4 1GHz with SuperDrive and was wondering if the Matsushita unit in it is just a DVD-R or if it is a DVD-RW as well? Thanks!
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 26
    defiantdefiant Posts: 4,876member
    <a href="http://www.apple.com/powerbook/"; target="_blank">http://www.apple.com/powerbook/</a>;



    [quote] Slot-loading SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW) <hr></blockquote>



    It says DVD-R... hmm. I don't know.



    [quote] The awesome SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW) reads DVD titles and writes to 4.7-gigabyte DVD-R discs. The SuperDrive also reads CDs writes to CD-R and writes to CD-RW disks. It supports DVD-Video, DVD-ROM and DVD-R, as well as CD-ROM, CD-Audio, CD-R, CD-RW, CD Bridge, CD Extended, CD Mixed Mode and Photo CD media.

    <hr></blockquote>



    they say it isn't.
  • Reply 2 of 26
    I don't know if anyone has tried, but I think the word on the street is that all you have to do is pop the DVD-R out before disc burner initializes it and then toss in an RW in it's place. Though I don't know how possible this is with a powerbook.



    I have the Combo Drive model. otherwise I'd run some tests and come up with an answer.
  • Reply 3 of 26
    hey, thanks for your reply. but i realize that they say that it isn't a DVD-RW, but the superdrive on the PowerMac G4 Quicksilvers, the Pioneer 103 is a DVD-RW, but Apple does not admit it:

    Quote:



    The drive to succeed

    Your SuperDrive-equipped Power Mac G4 lets you read and burn both CDs and DVDs that can be played in most consumer DVD players. The SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW) reads DVD titles at 6x (7.8 megabytes per second), and writes to 4.7-gigabyte DVD-R discs at 2x (2.6 megabytes per second). The SuperDrive also reads CDs at 24x, writes to CD-R at 8x, and writes to CD-RW at 4x. It supports DVD-Video, DVD-ROM and DVD-R, as well as CD-ROM, CD-Audio, CD-R, CD-RW, CDI, CD Bridge, CD Extended, CD Mixed Mode and Photo CD media.



    Nowhere in there do they say that it can write DVD-RW, but we all know that it can, because it is specified by Pioneer as a DVD-RW. So what I was wondering is: does anyone know for sure if the Matsushita drive is indeed ONLY a DVD-R, or if it has DVD-RW capability as well.



    Thanks again!
  • Reply 4 of 26
    If you can read japanese, I'm sure you can hunt it down on Matsushita's website, though I'm pretty sure everything coming from Matsushita these days is what they call a "DVD multi-drive." Meaning it can do dvdrw.



    My big question was that I wasn't quite sure if the keyboard eject button would give up the disc so that you can transplant the rw.
  • Reply 5 of 26
    It is definitely a DVD-RW drive. They all are. There is no such thing as a DVD-R only once drive. Just use ReWritable media and you can RW for the life of the media. No problem.
  • Reply 6 of 26
    [quote]Originally posted by Multimedia:

    <strong>It is definitely a DVD-RW drive. They all are. There is no such thing as a DVD-R only once drive. Just use ReWritable media and you can RW for the life of the media. No problem.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Careful there, several people on the MacNN forums have reported that the PB SD will not accept DVD-RWs, but will automatically eject them directly after insertion. I haven't yet tested it myself due to lack of RW media, but given that there haven't been any reports of people successfully writing to DVD-RW media on the new PBs at all, it seems the PB SD does in fact not like them.



    Bye,

    RazzFazz
  • Reply 7 of 26
    multimediamultimedia Posts: 1,034member
    [quote]Originally posted by RazzFazz:

    <strong>



    Careful there, several people on the MacNN forums have reported that the PB SD will not accept DVD-RWs, but will automatically eject them directly after insertion. I haven't yet tested it myself due to lack of RW media, but given that there haven't been any reports of people successfully writing to DVD-RW media on the new PBs at all, it seems the PB SD does in fact not like them.



    Bye,

    RazzFazz</strong><hr></blockquote>



    But there is a work around. You prepare to write with a piece of write once media in the drive then switch to RW media right befroe the burn.
  • Reply 8 of 26
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    [quote]Originally posted by Multimedia:

    <strong>It is definitely a DVD-RW drive. They all are. There is no such thing as a DVD-R only once drive. Just use ReWritable media and you can RW for the life of the media. No problem.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    You are incorrect again. Panasonic and other makers of DVD-RAM drives have a few models of DVD-R/DVD-RAM only drives. They cannot write DVD-RWs.



    <a href="http://www.panasonic.com/office/templates/PDIC_BuyNow.asp?Category=1052&ModelNo=lf-d321u"; target="_blank">http://www.panasonic.com/office/templates/PDIC_BuyNow.asp?Category=1052&ModelNo=lf-d321u</a>;



    --



    RazzFazz, the Matsushita drive in the SuperDrive PowerBooks can write to DVD-RW using the swap trick in iDVD, so the limitation for that particular drive is software.



    [ 01-01-2003: Message edited by: Eugene ]</p>
  • Reply 9 of 26
    razzfazzrazzfazz Posts: 728member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eugene:

    <strong>RazzFazz, the Matsushita drive in the SuperDrive PowerBooks can write to DVD-RW using the swap trick in iDVD, so the limitation for that particular drive is software.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Haven't tried it myself, but someone (I think Eug) stated that the iDVD swap trick did NOT work for him. Someone also suggested that the person who had previously reported the trick to work (JayTi?) might have had a pre-release firmware. In case it really just is a software issue, Toast should not have a problem either, but it supposedly has. Maybe someone with a PB SD and a DVD-RW at hand could try and see if cdrecord-ProDVD will write to RWs?



    Bye,

    RazzFazz
  • Reply 10 of 26
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    [quote]Originally posted by RazzFazz:

    <strong>



    Haven't tried it myself, but someone (I think Eug) stated that the iDVD swap trick did NOT work for him. Someone also suggested that the person who had previously reported the trick to work (JayTi?) might have had a pre-release firmware. In case it really just is a software issue, Toast should not have a problem either, but it supposedly has. Maybe someone with a PB SD and a DVD-RW at hand could try and see if cdrecord-ProDVD will write to RWs?



    Bye,

    RazzFazz</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Ah yeah, I was going on the information from MacNN's forums that I saw quite a while ago. Wasn't it determined that the drive was DVD-Multi? If DVD-RW support is really blocked by the firmware...blah.
  • Reply 11 of 26
    razzfazzrazzfazz Posts: 728member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eugene:

    <strong>Wasn't it determined that the drive was DVD-Multi?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I think this was just based on some PR photo showing a couple of drives, a "DVD Multi" logo somewhere, and a bunch of specs that do not really match the PB SD very well. Since it was in some asian language, I don't think anybody ever established for sure that the specs were actually referring to the UJ-815 at all.





    [quote]<strong>If DVD-RW support is really blocked by the firmware...blah.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Yeah, DVD-RW support would have been nice, and if full DVD Multi support would have been true (i.e. DVD-RAM too), I'd be in backup heaven. Oh well...



    Bye,

    RazzFazz
  • Reply 12 of 26
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    i know somone on this board has a PB, just find out who and ask...unless they wan't to keep it to themselves <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
  • Reply 13 of 26
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    I hope we get to the bottom of this. I'm seriously considering a PBG4 SuperDrive. I'm going to call Apple monday if we can't find out! DVD-RW support would be the last straw, I'm going to break down and buy a PBG4 and live off bread and water for the next few months. (Better than URI food?) And like it!
  • Reply 14 of 26
    razzfazzrazzfazz Posts: 728member
    [quote]Originally posted by ast3r3x:

    <strong>i know somone on this board has a PB, just find out who and ask...unless they wan't to keep it to themselves <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>



    I do have one, but I don't have any DVD-RW media to test it. Anyone know a good source for cheap indiviual DVD-RWs? I checked our local Best Buy last week, and they only had packs of five or more (and, sadly, seemed to have a much greater variety of DVD+R(W) than DVD-R(W) media - hopefully this does not become a trend).



    Bye,

    RazzFazz
  • Reply 15 of 26
    defiantdefiant Posts: 4,876member
    apple's cheap.
  • Reply 16 of 26
    razzfazzrazzfazz Posts: 728member
    [quote]Originally posted by Defiant:

    <strong>apple's cheap.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I don't think they sell DVD-RW media at all, or do they? (And even their DVD-Rs aren't that cheap.)



    Bye,

    RazzFazz
  • Reply 17 of 26
    I do have the new SuperDrive TiBook, and HAVE tried DVD-RW media in it. Insert the disk, and a moment later the drive ejects it (no iDVD or anything else running).



    I'm currently looking at the Darwin source code in an attempt to determine if this is driver related or hardware related. However, between kids, a wife that wants to use it, and hobbies I don't know how long it will take to make this call.



    John
  • Reply 18 of 26
    As an update, I've played some with the kernel extensions, and it doesn't look like they are being notified of the DVD-RW insertion (at least, IOStorageFamily.kext isn't). I'm guessing the DVD-R firmware is prohibiting it, if it is actually a DVD-RW capable drive.
  • Reply 19 of 26
    kcmackcmac Posts: 1,051member
    Let's say you could trick it into burning the disk as noted above.



    If you wanted to read from it later, how would you do that? Wouldn't it kick it out?
  • Reply 20 of 26
    I have the pioneer on my 800 iMac. They all have dvd-r and rw capabilities.



    I don't know about the others, but, the pioneer will only accept dvd-r and dvd-rw and NOT the dvd+r and dvd+rw.



    My neighbor was irate when he thought he couldn't use the rw's but it was because he bought the +'s
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