LaCie d2, bundled w/Toast 6.1 Lite

[GITANAJAVA]

God bless great clients: one of mine bought me the LaCie d2 DVD +/- RW double layer today, it's bundled with Toast 6.1 Lite (for my Powerbook G4), firewire, USB, and Easy Media Creator 7 (that's for the MS yabows, yes?). My PB's combo drive was obviously not up to the task of burning to DVD the animations, slideshows, and other projects I produce for his company, so he surprised me with this acquisition.

I'll be up all night playing and tinkering with the new toy, now that I've read everything online that was written in Beginners 101 language. Before I cut the cord here at the internet cafe and sail home, I thought I'd check in: I have Tiger, I have 17 GB free -- am I good to go? Do I need Toast at all given the improvements Tiger brought to the table?

:::new territory, the ground feels a bit marshy:::

 

[mad jew]

Well, it depends what apps you are using to burn with at the moment. Your animation app may have the ability to directly burn to the DVD. However, Toast is a brilliant app if you have a superdrive, so I'd recommend installing it. It's certainly better at burning DVDs than Finder.

 

[GITANAJAVA]

Thanks for the feedback, MJ.

My client bought the LaCie because my PB G4 has a combo drive, not the Superdrive necessary for burning DVD's. Until now, if I couldn't wrangle a way (or a workaround!) to burn to CD, I'd eventually find myself chilling out at a mate's or a client's office so I could briefly use their equipment -- NOT my first choice for managing time and projects ::chagrin::

So far, the LaCie (and bundle) have worked out well -- read all the manuals and read-me-firsts, connected seamlessly with my laptop, made a few back-ups for practice and practicality, and for the piece de' resistance and my last LaCie chore of the evening, wrote a special project for said client to DVD. So far, so good. Until.....

Everything seemed to proceed perfectly until I tried to read that same just-finished DVD project from the LaCie. Not happening! No matter what approach I used, I kept getting the message "not permitted" when I tried to play it from the LaCie to my laptop. (The file appeared on my desktop without any issues, but beyond that small reassurance -- zilch!) Read all the troubleshooting tips, both LaCie's and Apple's, and I STILL can't twig what's the problem.

Final note and then I'm off to the local: what's all this drivel about Zones and "you only have 5 zone changes, etc". Am I expected to check the tiny, tiny fine print on a packet of blank DVD's to verify that their manufacturer/distributor/whoever/whatever comes from a Zone that is compatible with my zone? What's it for anyway and why has someone apparently decided that I need to make a Zone countdown?

Me, of all non-tekky people, in charge of a DVD/Zone/whatsit countdown? Be afraid, be VERY afraid!

 

[mad jew]

Everything seemed to proceed perfectly until I tried to read that same just-finished DVD project from the LaCie. Not happening! No matter what approach I used, I kept getting the message "not permitted" when I tried to play it from the LaCie to my laptop. (The file appeared on my desktop without any issues, but beyond that small reassurance -- zilch!) Read all the troubleshooting tips, both LaCie's and Apple's, and I STILL can't twig what's the problem.

So you're making DVDs but they're not being recognised. Try a different brand of media and if that doesn't work, try slowing down your burn speed.

Final note and then I'm off to the local: what's all this drivel about Zones and "you only have 5 zone changes, etc". Am I expected to check the tiny, tiny fine print on a packet of blank DVD's to verify that their manufacturer/distributor/whoever/whatever comes from a Zone that is compatible with my zone? What's it for anyway and why has someone apparently decided that I need to make a Zone countdown?

Me, of all non-tekky people, in charge of a DVD/Zone/whatsit countdown? Be afraid, be VERY afraid!

DVDs have zones specific to different areas around the globe. You are only allowed to change these zones five times. Assuming you only really use local commercial DVDs (most likely), then don't worry about this too much. If you keep playing DVDs from different continents then you might need to rethink how you play them (for movies, VLC may help out in that it shouldn't worry about the zoning).