[MacDV] DVD-R question

[Mark M. Florida]

Apple has a firmware update that will allow your drive to use 4x discs
without burning up (literally), but the burn speed will only be 1x.  The 2x
drives are a dead-end as far as media goes.  :-(  I broke down and bought a
8x drive (DVR-107) for about $100 -- but I have a PowerMac G4, not an iMac.

You can either pay out the nose for 2x media (TDK 2x media works good, but
costs about $2.50 per disc), or figure out how to install an 8x drive in
your iMac (I'm sure there are pages on the 'net to show how to do this --
maybe http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/).

You *may* also be able to use an "unofficial" firmware updater to allow 2x
burning of more brands of 4x media (there's actually some info about that on
xlr8yourmac today).

Hope that helps.

- Mark (F.)

On 7/27/04 10:46 AM, Mark O'Brien at rmobrien at mac.com wrote:

> I bought a stack of DVDs from Meritline.com for a great price about 18
> months ago. But now that stack is getting low and I haven't been paying
> attention to the market.
> 
> I have the original 15" iMac G4 with SuperDrive. I don't remember if that
> was a 1X or 2X drive, but IIRC there may have been a firmware update
> somewhere along the line related to DVD Write speed.
> 
> So here's the question: What kind of DVD-Rs do I need to buy? It seems the
> only DVD-Rs Meritline is selling these days are 4X and 8X. Are they
> backward-compatible? Can my "ancient" SuperDrive handle them?
> 
> Mark