The reason for the lack of a Dual-Layer drive in Macs

Rumour only: Blu-Ray drives in top-end Power Macs only before the end of this year... personally, I'm not sure about that but rumours are fun to pass on.

Oh come on, why would Apple wait for new tech before updating their existing technology? They really do need to update their DVD burner options though. 16x desktop drives are $50-$60 now, yet they charge $100 extra on the PowerMacs and $150 extra on the eMac for an 8x DVD burner.

They may have been holding off on the dual layer burners because previously, dual layer was DVD+R only. But now Pioneer's DVR-109 has 6x DVD-R DL capability, so hopefully the PowerMacs will get those in their next revision.

It shouldn't cost extra to have DL drives or 16x. Ship Macs with the standard now, Blu-Ray can be later when it is final.

Apple already ships a DL drive, they just limit the functionality of the drive via firmware. If you install the drive in a PC and update the firmware it will then show up as a DL drive. There was an article about how to do it on macbytes a couple of months ago.

well daul layer media has been around for ages and any DVD drive player can read them. It was more resently they figure out how to make it burnible. The formate is still the same as with other DVD-R either + or -. The blue ray burners should be able to burn 10 layers (I know they can read 10 layers) and they still will need a red lazer in them to read non blue ray media and to burn non blue media.

I still think it sad that apple has not start putting them in thier mac considering that it cost is pretty much the same as they are now. Isnt the drive used in the Power mac a Drive that had dual layer burning capiblitly just it is disable by the firm ware and on top of that the burning software macs use can not even burn in dual layer even if they are hook up to a daul layer burner (now that part is even more unexatble than not have a daul layer burning in there mac yet)

Maybe it's a copyright issue? Why does the average consumer need a dual layer drive? If only to copy commercial DVDs without compression? 2 hours is plenty of time for iDVD.

johnnyjibbs said:

Maybe it's a copyright issue? Why does the average consumer need a dual layer drive? If only to copy commercial DVDs without compression? 2 hours is plenty of time for iDVD.

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a little over 8 gigs of storge better for data back up. Why does the average person need to burn DVDs or even a CDs since with CDs I can easily copy CDs but you get the point. Apple is getting behind the times

johnnyjibbs said:

Maybe it's a copyright issue? Why does the average consumer need a dual layer drive? If only to copy commercial DVDs without compression? 2 hours is plenty of time for iDVD.

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Not sure if I'm an "average"consumer or not, but I would love a dual layer burner for, oh say:

1. My iTunes library takes up more than one DVD worth of space, but a dual layer would be just fine.

2. Fewer disks to back up my project drives.

3. More space for my DVD Studio Pro projects. I sometime need to break them up into two DVDs.

4. Fewer disks to back up my FCP capture files (dont always do this, but on occassion its a necessity).

Just a few ideas off the top of my head. And I'm not sure that its Apple's responsibility to withold useful technology just becasue someone may pirate some DVDs with it. Not sure what the holdup is, though.

Apple already ships a DL drive, they just limit the functionality of the drive via firmware. If you install the drive in a PC and update the firmware it will then show up as a DL drive. There was an article about how to do it on macbytes a couple of months ago.

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Correct... For example my Sony Superdrive on my PM is actually DL, but just disabled...

Hi, for my needs I got an external dvd dl burner (check sig.).
I mainly got this drive to use for backing up my system and also the price was just right $117 total with Toast 6 TI. So if Blu-Ray comes out I'm thinking that I can just pull the old drive out and fit the new one right in Like I said "hope" but even if not DL is nice to save all my photos and documents with for now
It would be nice to see Apple stay ahead of the game with such a drive as standard.

We all know that Sony don't make their own DVD rewriters, as they are made by Lite-On. I wonder if the Blu-Ray drives will be manufactured by Lite-On also.

I have two external DVD/DL drives hooked up to my imac G5. One is a plextor 716, the other a Pioneer 109. I used a old LaCie case for the Plextor, a Rosewill Aluminum case for the Pioneer. Both are very good drives, Plextor offers mac support for firmeware upgrades. The Plextor does have riplock for reading DVD's enabled, The Pioneer 109 does require you to use a windows machine to upgrade to this feature. Both are capable of DVD+DL, DVD-DL. The Plextor is a bit faster burning, achieved 52x in itunes. The Pioneer 32x speeds.
You may ask me why don't I use the superdrive installed in my G5? the Panasonic UJ 825 drive is a notebook drive, rather noisy when using it. I would suggest is you need a DVD drive for your mac, go external. Run patchburn 3, and your ready to go.

We all know that Sony don't make their own DVD rewriters, as they are made by Lite-On. I wonder if the Blu-Ray drives will be manufactured by Lite-On also.

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Yeah I know its a Lite-On, but its still listed as a Sony... If I would have said my PM came with a Lite-On someone would have gone "wtf?"... Know what Im saying?