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is apple super drive that bad ?

cudo

cudo

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 6, 2007
257
0
In my head.
i have heard that super drive offered by apple in its current machines is of the same quality a pc user had 10 years ago, is it true ?

is it true it is really slow and very offen happen to have problems with reading/writing date ?

i have heard from a friend of mine that he was unable to read the CD he burnt with his macbook just few months ago.

do you really need to purchase only top-of the range DVD/CD to be able to use them ? apparently super drive is not copable of using cheap DVD/CDs ?

is it really such a big issue ? the same DVD/CD is not read by mac but is easly read by pc , true ?

mac cannot use DVD-RW/CD-RW ? and if it does it is paingfully slow.

could you please coment on that ...
 
Not sure were your friend is getting his information. My drive always worked great. It makes a very horrible cringing sound, but that's actually normal for these notebooks.
 
the only thing that is bad about the DVD drives is the "5 time region change" but that isnt even apples fault!
 
Were superdrives in PeeCees 10 years ago?

Also Apple don't manufacture the drive.
 
the only thing i know of that it cant use is DVD-R DL but that is pretty much a dead format now anyway...
 
the only thing i know of that it cant use is DVD-R DL but that is pretty much a dead format now anyway...
Click to expand...
system profiler of my mbp says:
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW

appears to support it...
 

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No problem what so ever, definitely not from normal usage.


cudo said:
i have heard that super drive offered by apple in its current machines is of the same quality a pc user had 10 years ago, is it true ?
Click to expand...

10 years ago, burning 650MB of files with DVD RAM took about 40 minutes.
http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,8836/printable.html

Depends on which mac / superdrive / media, burning a DVD of 4gb takes from a FEW MINUTES to 15 minutes.


cudo said:
i have heard from a friend of mine that he was unable to read the CD he burnt with his macbook just few months ago.
Click to expand...

Might be variety of things, likely causes are:
- Cheap media (doesn't work well on any burner, reflecting material might chip off)
- It was scratched
- Small chance of being a mis-burn
Can happen on PC or Mac.


cudo said:
do you really need to purchase only top-of the range DVD/CD to be able to use them ? apparently super drive is not copable of using cheap DVD/CDs ?
Click to expand...

It will work the same as any PCs. Cheap stuff will break down. NOT mac specific. As to the other stuff, it's false.


You probably don't want to waste your time with anything technical this person says, because unfortunately he is either really extremely unknowledgeable or an out right liar.
 
That's misinformed hogwash I'm afraid.

The superdrives are absolutely fine, mine works every day without fault (although probably worth noting it had to be replaced because it was faulty a few months ago). Wow, look at the contradiction. :D
 
masse said:
Yeah, don't listen to your friend. Ever.
Click to expand...

In fact, if you can get away with it, make his life a living Windows. i.e., make his car's engine stop for no reason as he's driving, make him need to buy a new sink when he gets a new toothbrush, Follow him around for an entire day asking him about all the minutia of daily life... the usual...

"You are about to buy a cheese danish. Cancel or Allow?" at the top of your lungs, stepping between him and the clerk.
 
Your friend is just a moron or taking too many or not enough medication...

That is SERIOUSLY the stupidest thing I've heard about a Mac and especially a Superdrive in the last few years, your friend deserves a Darwin Award.

I've never had a problem with a Superdrive besides read/writes issues from a crap disc (which is like 1 in every 1000), Apple uses industry standard drives so it's most probably the same or similar drives that are used in the PC equivalent and for the record it takes around 15 min for me to burn a DVD.

And seriously how would Apple hunt down 10 year old drives to put in new computers? It just doesn't make any sense. It seriously reminds me of the urban legend about how KFC is using Duck rather than Chicken...

Anyway here's a quick grab from my System Profile

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857E:

Firmware Revision: ZB0E
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +RW, +R DL
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media: No

I'm also sensing a troll here ;)
 
cudo said:
do you really need to purchase only top-of the range DVD/CD to be able to use them ? apparently super drive is not copable of using cheap DVD/CDs ?
Click to expand...

It is, lol. I use cheapish CDs and DVDs for burning my music and videos that I make onto media discs... they work fine. Burning is fine. Honestly.

cudo said:
is it really such a big issue ? the same DVD/CD is not read by mac but is easly read by pc , true ?.
Click to expand...

Yeah, for a very small minority of CDs, it will not import properly. I got this a few times with some indie bands that I tried to rip - including my own album which I burnt from my recording studio.
It is a drive issue because my friend with a Macbook had the same problem with my album BUT IT IS OVERCOME-ABLE. Really, don't worry about it. It's less likely to happen to you than it is.

Don't worry about it.
 
ummm, sorry to say guys, but i kind of agree with his friend. i actually returned my first MBP (june/july) cause the drive was so slow i thought something was wrong. i got the second one and same thing.....so i guess its normal..but one of my first posts here if i remember was a question asking if the drive was supposed to be like this.
as bad as it anoys me to this day, i rarely use cd drives so not to big a deal. but to prove the point it felt like it took forever when i installed leopard and installing xcode tools or whatever its called, showed 43 minutes to install (prob took about 20-25) but come on i dont think it should be that long

anyway, ymmv, but thats just my opinion
 
pitt1717 said:
ummm, sorry to say guys, but i kind of agree with his friend. i actually returned my first MBP (june/july) cause the drive was so slow i thought something was wrong. i got the second one and same thing.....so i guess its normal..but one of my first posts here if i remember was a question asking if the drive was supposed to be like this.
as bad as it anoys me to this day, i rarely use cd drives so not to big a deal. but to prove the point it felt like it took forever when i installed leopard and installing xcode tools or whatever its called, showed 43 minutes to install (prob took about 20-25) but come on i dont think it should be that long

anyway, ymmv, but thats just my opinion
Click to expand...

Do you expect to install an OS in minutes? Leopard is on a dual layer DVD, with a number of items compressed.

Have you ever installed windows? Do you know Windows xp pre-SP2 (CD size, 650mb) requires at least an hour or two for installation on a wintel laptop, and you have to babysit it, filling in some retarded MS popup questions a number of times. If you don't fill it in, then windows install will just get stuck. (XP SP2 still does it, but with slightly fewer steps, still quite a big waste of time).

So, Leopard, 8gb install took you, lets say 25 to 45 minutes. With no user intervention necessary once install starts.

While windows xp, at 650mb, less than 10% size, takes MORE than an 60 minutes to install and requires babysitting.

Which is faster?
 
Not sure where your friend is getting that info from, but it's been my experience that Apple uses the better drives and I've yet to burn a coaster in the past few years of making dvd's several times a week.

I've replaced one drive in the Cube, it was a Pioneer (or Panasonic, can't remember) but only because the original wasn't a burner.
 
I get it all the time here.

"My friend knows a TON about computers and stuff and they said _____"

Fill in the blanks with:
1) windows vista 64 gets no viruses
2) macs aren't 64 bit,
3) because I have an AMD, you multiply the clock speed by 2 because its 2 cores
4) macbook pro's can't run auto cad
5) this is the most powerful graphics you can get

meanwhile he is on a new HP laptop that turns on half the time, overheats the other half, and has trouble running simple programs like matlab.

I'm on a 3.5 year old computer and its a hell of a lot better :)
 
Consultant said:
Do you expect to install an OS in minutes? Leopard is on a dual layer DVD, with a number of items compressed.

Have you ever installed windows? Do you know Windows xp pre-SP2 (CD size, 650mb) requires at least an hour or two for installation on a wintel laptop, and you have to babysit it, filling in some retarded MS popup questions a number of times. If you don't fill it in, then windows install will just get stuck. (XP SP2 still does it, but with slightly fewer steps, still quite a big waste of time).

So, Leopard, 8gb install took you, lets say 25 to 45 minutes. With no user intervention necessary once install starts.

While windows xp, at 650mb, less than 10% size, takes MORE than an 60 minutes to install and requires babysitting.

Which is faster?
Click to expand...

Yeah! What he said!!!
 
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