[MacDV] Re: DVD-R question

[Mark O'Brien]

Thanks for the response, Mark. But I'm still slightly confused - please bear
with my questions below:

On 7/27/04 12:16 PM, "Mark M. Florida" <markf at squareblue.com> wrote:

> 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.

I'm not so much worried about speeding up the burn time as I am about being
able to buy affordable media. From what you say above, I can buy 4x discs
and burn them at 1x on my iMac. Or, from what you say below, I can buy
increasingly hard to find and expensive 2x media and achieve 2x burn speed.
> 
> 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/).

I just saw an ad for an MCE-installed 8x DVD±RW while researching my specs
this morning: <http://www.mcetech.com/dvdr8xdt_imacg4.html>. $149 plus
shipping.
> 
> 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).

But without that firmware update, I should be able to successfully (and
safely) burn 4x media at 1x speed, right?

Mark