Ask a Tech Expert Now- JustAnswer
March 31, 2005 7:46 AM PST
2005 PowerBook G4 (possibly other models') SuperDrives not burning at advertised speed
A growing number of MacFixIt readers are reporting that they are unable to burn DVDs at the advertised speed on newer PowerBooks with Matshita-manufactured SuperDrives.
Most users report that they cannot obtain burn speeds above 2x on drives that are spec'd at 8x. If users attempt to burn at a higher speed, one of two scenarios manifest:
Users experiencing the problem have experimented with a variety of media, including Apple's own branded DVDs, with similar lackluster results.
If you are experiencing a similar issue, please let us know.
Resources
%20SuperDrives%20not%20burning%20at%20advertised%20speed%20%7C%20MacFixIt%20-%20CNET%20Reviews&srcUrl=http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10334539-263.html){kind=small}
do what it thinks is the best burn. select the 8X before continuing w/ the
burn.
at 8x write for CD-R they burn only at 4x Several brand of media, I have tried
have yielded the same results, EXCEPT Sony brand CD-R AUDIO (not data CD-
R) Odd, but they DO get persnickety and media is being made much more
cheaply, and built to stay that way, these days...
I have put a Pioneer DVR-108. with an advertised 16x DVD burner, in my G5
Dual 2.0. The fastest I have gotten so far is 12x. The problem is complex.
First, the media has to be able to accept a write at that speed, and the drive's
firmware has to be written to accomodate the real-life blank disks that are
out there. Until I upgraded the drive's firmware with version 1.18, I was
getting some disappointing burn times, but now, with some (but not all) 8x
DVD media, I'm getting 12x. If anybody has seen disks that are 16x, please
tell me. I don't think they're readily available. I suspect that a firmware
upgrade might be necessary to get maximum burns -- and then, not with all
media.
But I can write an entire DVD in 5 minutes. Okay?
Try Maxcel DVD-R's - marked as 8X but I can burn at 16X with Nero and an NEC-3500 16XDL. Other burners have gone up to 12X with this media - Oh yeah - and these are in PC's.
PS - Never set burn speed options to maximum - never seems to work out.
Two things:
1) Unless you're using a patched firmware like from pioneerdvd.rpc1.org, the
drive only burns at the speed rating of the media or lower. (4x on 4x media,
8x on 8x media, etc). The patched firmware at the site above allows the
DVR-108 to burn any 4x media at up to 12x, which is nice.
2) The DVR-108 doesn't really burn 16x in the truest sense ... I've read on
parts of the net that the DVR-108 only burns certain sectors (I forget if it's
the inner sections or outer sections, I seem to remember it being a section
about 250 MB of size) at 16x and the rest at 12x. This actually makes burning
about 12x dangerous, because the switch from 12x CLV to 16x CLV may
result in a bad burn depending on what you're burning and your optical
media. This is one reason why the writer of the patched firmware only wrote
it to take advantage of 12x read/write speeds rather than 16x.
DVD-R UJ-835E rev. GAN7, not only is unable to achieve 6-8x with DVDs, but
also is slow in burning CDs (it should be 24x). With Verbatim 48x media, my
best score is 6 minutes to burn a 650MB CD (I think it's about 10x).
Read this long topic on Apple discussion
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?7@892.FbiqaDa9VP0.5@.68a7ba65/
35
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?
s=9eaf9f394f45c97db28371a4622fbf61&threadid=245720&perpage=50&pa
genumber=1
So far, there has been no confirmed burns at 8x with any media that I am
aware of. A couple types of media are recognized as 8x, but they still do not
burn as such. More than that, not only do they not average 8x, it seems they
never reach 8x speeds even at the end of their burns as would be expected of
an 8x burner of this type.
Please note, several people have claimed 8x burn speed but this is because
people are doing one of a few things wrong. 1) Trusting the reported speeds
by toast or disk utility, just because these applications recognize the media
as 8x media, does not mean you are getting 8x burns. 2) Trusting the
estimated time given by toast, you need to time the burn using a clock, even
if Toast says it will take 6 minutes to burn, if you actually time it you will find
it burns way slower.
hopefully apple provides a firmware update that fixes this.
-lebn
- by gesplus March 31, 2005 8:08 PM PST
- I have trouble burning any 8x media in a Pioneer 107 in an MDD 2x 867, latest burner firmware, 10.3.8. Is it OS X, lousy media, or all DVD burner manufacturers make lousy drives? Who knows. It would be nice to get a good answer to the problem as it seems so widespread.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(8 Comments)