Rewritable DVD?

[Emmet]

Hello all. I'm almost ready to cave and pay the extra money for a Mac, except--

I need my Mac to have an optical drive that will work with rewritable DVDs. I'd like to get one without having to do the install work, i.e., direct from Apple. Does anyone know if Apple is planning to upgrade the Superdrive so it can handle DVD-RWs anytime soon?

Thanks.

 

[jsw]

The actual drive itself (Pioneer 8X DVR-107 DVD, I think) already supports those disks. I'm not sure what you need to do to get the Mac to support them, though. If I had any DVD-RWs laying around, I'd let you know if the old (4X) Superdrives support the format, but I don't. Perhaps the support is just not "official".

 

[Horrortaxi]

I thought it already could.

 

[Emmet]

I don't know...

I thought it already could.

I would hope that it could, but looking through the Apple site, I can't find anything that indicates that the drive does support DVD-RW. I'm just afraid to drop a huge chunk of change and then find out I can't use rewritables, which is how I do all my DVDs until I've finally got them just right...

If it's the Pioneer DVR-107, the hardware supports it; that's what I have in my PC. But if the software won't work with the disks...

Sigh

 

[jsw]

Anywhere near an Apple Store or any place that carries Macs?

Just bring a DVD-RW and see if it's seen by the system.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

My system profiler for my 12" PB says my SuperDrive supports DVD-RW (it's the stock drive, not some custom replacement). I haven't tried it but I presume it works. Likewise, Disk Utility supposedly supports erasing of DVD-RWs to make them blank again.

iDVD apparently only supports DVD-Rs (best for compatibility with DVD players anyway) although apparently there is a trick you can do: put a DVD-R in when it asks for it and then quickly swap to a DVD-RW after you've pressed OK.

I'm sure you can burn DVD-RWs in the Finder. I think it's just DVD+R and DVD+RW that you have to watch out for.

 

[aswitcher]

My system profiler for my 12" PB says my SuperDrive supports DVD-RW (it's the stock drive, not some custom replacement). I haven't tried it but I presume it works. Likewise, Disk Utility supposedly supports erasing of DVD-RWs to make them blank again.

I would love to hear anyones success with the new 17PB and DVD-RWs. If so please list brand used and settings applied.

I am finding Toast Titanium 6.0 is not as simple to use as I would like with CD R/Ws compared to using software on a pc that seemed more intuative. The manuals a bit light on and it was pretty easy to burn a disk and close it accidentally. I've learnt now but I really hope that Tiger incorporates many of the burning features with a user interface that means a novice user will easily know what they are doing.

 

[Boss_Jim]

It appears that Mac OS X does not support writing to DVD-RW discs. From Mac Help:

There are several types of recordable CD and DVD media:

DVD-R discs hold about 4.7 GB of information. You can burn files on a DVD-R disc using the Apple SuperDrive. DVD-R discs are not reusable; you can burn files on them only once.

DVD-RW (DVD-Rewritable) discs hold about 4.7 GB of information on each side. If you have an Apple SuperDrive, you can read information on these discs, but you can't burn files on them using Mac OS X. DVD-RW discs are reusable: you can burn files on them, erase them, and then burn again (if you have an application that is compatible).

You will need software but the drive is compatible.

 

[jeremy.king]

Depending on your need for DVD-RW support (burning from iDVD???) - you could get by with an external. I know that I am able to burn them with my external Sony DRX-510UL drive using Toast. If you should need iDVD support, then you may want to try the hack thats been posted here before. When I tried the hack, iDVD did "see" my burner, but i never tried burning.

 

[Yuh]

I've got the older 1.33GHz 17" PB running 10.3.4 The superdrive is a Matshi-ta DVD-R UJ-816 rev DXJ3.
DVD-RW works with both Finder (to write) and Disk Utility (to erase), as well as with Toast 6. Using a Ritek 2X DVD-RW burning at a painful 1X (which is all my superdrive supports up to, the current ones are 2X).
But right now, I've only got 3GB free on the main drive so the Finder won't let me burn to it, because i don't have enough free space.... although i've got 6GB free on the other partition... why can't it use the other partition?