[Ti] 1st Gen. 17" v. SACD CD layer

[Kynan Shook]

Do you know anybody else in your area with a 1 GHz 17" PowerBook?  Are 
there any Apple Authorized Resellers in the area?  Resellers sometimes 
don't have the latest machines on display, often waiting for a new form 
factor or other major upgrades before refreshing their demo units.  Is 
there a MUG in your area where you can go and see if somebody else 
could try one of those disks for you?  Does anybody on the list live 
near you?  It often happens that an optical drive will fail partially, 
reading one type of disks and not another (eg reading DVDs and CDs just 
fine, but not CD-Rs, or reading CDs fine and not DVDs, etc.), so 
hopefully you can find another identical revision (and drive firmware) 
of the PowerBook to test it with.

However, it could very well be a limitation of the drive; making a slot 
loading drive that thin is absolutely amazing.  I haven't compared it 
to, say, the Titanium optical drives, but I would assume it is slightly 
thinner than they were; I'll make a mental note to try and compare them 
sometime.  I'm opening a 17" PowerBook tomorrow, I hope, and I have a 
few old Titanium DVD-ROM drives laying around to compare it with.  
Anyway, assuming that it is a new design, there can be unintentional 
quirks to it such as this, or perhaps it was just deemed an unnecessary 
addition in order to squeeze an extra millimeter out of the case.

Somebody asked if you had flashed your drive with the 2x DVD-R update; 
if not, perhaps you could try.  IIRC, this added support for some types 
of discs, perhaps it would help your situation (I think it added like 
DVD-RW or something, I could be wrong though).  Check the list archives 
(or Google) for the site.


Dave Morrison <davemor at gte.net> writes:
> Back in November, I posted a message about my problems with my 1st gen.
> 17" PB not being able to play the CD layer of the SACD's that I had
> been buying. At the time, I knew that the newer PB's and desktops could
> play them including the 2nd gen. 17" AlBook. My initial calls to
> AppleCare got me nowhere. I got the (understandable) comment that "we
> can't support EVERY new disc format that comes along" and that it's an
> "unsupported format". At that point, I was pretty much resigned to not
> being able to play these discs. However, I started checking the discs
> on older Macs too. I found that all the older and newer Macs would play
> except for my $3000+ AlBook. Since these discs carry the standard
> "Digital Audio" logo of all CD's, they should appear as nothing more
> than a standard CD to any player you put it into....including the $50
> boombox I tried the discs in (successfully).  Has anybody else had a
> chance to use these discs with their Macs? Is there any alternative
> left open to me? I went through two levels of AppleCare last night and
> dead-ended with an Engineering tech who wouldn't pass me up to anybody
> higher than him. My only option left (according to him) was to go to
> Customer Relations. However, he said that they would listen to me for a
> minute or two and then hand me back to AppleCare again. I'm stumped. If
> older and newer Macs can play this CD material, why won't mine?