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new 8x superdrive only showing max 2x in toast

S

sohaness

macrumors member
Original poster
hey folks,

i'm using one of the new rev d powerbooks and my superdrive which is supposed to burn at 8x is only showing 1x and 2x in toast.

i've tried two different kinds of media and still no luck!

any ideas whats wrong?

steve.
 
yeah i first tried some no name 'vakoss' brand and then i switched to ridata, and still no luck (they were both 8x rated) 🙁

maybe i should buy a sony, hp, or maxell brand and see if they work...

steve.
 
The best DVD-R brand I have ever used are the Taiyo Yuden 8X DVD-Rs with the silver matte inkjet printable surfaces. These discs are extremely reliable.
 
Try burning one via the Finder, then check the Console log and see what both the requested and actual burn speeds are.

Regards,
Marc
 
drutil

Ok. I've got it. 🙂 Put a blank piece of media in the drive. In Terminal type: drutil status <cr>

You'll get something like this:

[david]> drutil status
Vendor Product Rev
PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-107D 1.20

Type: DVD-R Name: /dev/disk3
Cur Write: 63xCD / 8xDVD Sessions: 0
Max Write: 63xCD / 8xDVD Tracks: 0
Overwritable: 510:38:38 blocks: 2297888 / 4.71GB / 4.38GiB
Space Free: 510:38:38 blocks: 2297888 / 4.71GB / 4.38GiB
Space Used: 00:00:00 blocks: 0 / 0.00MB / 0.00MiB
Writability: appendable, blank, overwritable

HTH
 
daveL said:
Ok. I've got it. 🙂 Put a black piece of media in the drive.
Click to expand...
I tried this Dave, but all my DVD-R's were kind of silvery coloured. So I took one down to the basement and spray painted it black, and the Superdrive does nothing but eject it. I can't get far enough to type the commands you gave. Help!




😀
 
ok...its the media.

i put in a dvd-rw that i have which is of the brand 'melody' and it allowed me to burn at 8x.

i dont understand why it wouldnt burn the ridata 8x though...i thought that was a pretty decent brand no?

steve.
 
CanadaRAM said:
I tried this Dave, but all my DVD-R's were kind of silvery coloured. So I took one down to the basement and spray painted it black, and the Superdrive does nothing but eject it. I can't get far enough to type the commands you gave. Help!




😀
Click to expand...
Guess I need to proof read my posts a bit better 🙂 I can see how you might be having a problem with those black discs. 🙂
 
sohaness said:
ok...its the media.

i put in a dvd-rw that i have which is of the brand 'melody' and it allowed me to burn at 8x.

i dont understand why it wouldnt burn the ridata 8x though...i thought that was a pretty decent brand no?

steve.
Click to expand...
Ridata (Ritek) is what I use. The output from the "drutil status" command, above, was with a blank (not black) Ritek 8x DVD-R.
 
here is what i get with the ritek media:

Vendor Product Rev
MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-835E GAN7

Type: DVD-R Name: /dev/disk1
Cur Write: 16xCD / 2xDVD Sessions: 0
Max Write: 16xCD / 2xDVD Tracks: 0
Overwritable: 510:46:46 blocks: 2298496 / 4.71GB / 4.38GiB
Space Free: 510:46:46 blocks: 2298496 / 4.71GB / 4.38GiB
Space Used: 00:00:00 blocks: 0 / 0.00MB / 0.00MiB
Writability: appendable, blank, overwritable


and here is what i get with some new TDK's i just bought today:

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-835E GAN7

Type: DVD-R Name: /dev/disk1
Cur Write: 63xCD / 8xDVD Sessions: 0
Max Write: 63xCD / 8xDVD Tracks: 0
Overwritable: 510:46:46 blocks: 2298496 / 4.71GB / 4.38GiB
Space Free: 510:46:46 blocks: 2298496 / 4.71GB / 4.38GiB
Space Used: 00:00:00 blocks: 0 / 0.00MB / 0.00MiB
Writability: appendable, blank, overwritable

steve.
 
It's starting to sound to me as though the firmware on your drive is a bit stall (Apple almost never offers firmware updates for their drives). You might try poking around sites like:
http://flashman.rpc1.org/

You may find you can reflash your drive with the latest firmware from the manufacturer. I've reflashed my Pioneer 107D since I bought my PM G5 rev b (original Apple drive); it still says "Apple supported/shipped" in the System Profiler.
 
lovely...just had a few buffer underruns trying to burn the TDK's at 8x...

not liking this at all.

steve.
 
sohaness said:
lovely...just had a few buffer underruns trying to burn the TDK's at 8x...

not liking this at all.

steve.
Click to expand...
If you are using Toast, don't forget to turn on under run protection on in the preferences (I think that's where it is).
 
I use the 8x white inkjet-printable ProDisc DVD-Rs, and they work great. They're high quality discs and they're cheaper than the Riteks... link

Now i'm curious to how fast everyone else is getting they're discs to burn at 8x. Everywhere I see 8x media advertised it says that they can burn in 11 minutes, and all 16x media says that it can burn in 6 minutes. Well... my discs show up in Toast with a max write speed of 8x, but they only take 6 minutes to burn an entire DVD!

Am I actually getting 16x write speeds with 8x media?

I know that the burner in my G5 is the 16x + Dual Layer burner (Pioneer 117D) that is crippled to 8x only by Apple, but maybe non-Apple apps like Toast can actually burn at 16x?
 
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