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upgrade Superdrive to Dual layer

adamfilip

adamfilip

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 13, 2003
841
1
burlington, Ontario canada
My G5 has a superdrive
But i want it to burn dual layer dvd's
there are dual layer burners on the market
can i simple swap one in?

or is there a particular one? that i need
 
Lacie recently came out with a dual-layer burner that includes Toast 6 for ~US$240. It's external, and you can just chain it with your other firewire devices. Easier than exchanging drives, gives you an extra optical drive, and not a bad price given that Toast is included.

Edit: It's available at http://store.apple.com, and it's US$239. Just go to the store and search for Lacie DVD. I'd post a link, but the WebObjects stuff makes that difficult to do...

Note also that it is a dual-layer burner, although the Apple Store fails to mention that.
 
if it's really bugging you, you could dismantle it and just install the drive internally...i suspect they designed it as external because 1. wider range of users (portable and desktop) 2. adds another optical drive instead of replacing, now you can burn straight from disk 3.heat/space concerns? just trying to make 3 reasons ;).
 
Dr. Dastardly said:
If they had them then why wouldn't they have some sort of built to order option. I know that these are external, but is it that hard to put an internal in there?
Click to expand...

My guess is that Apple puts only Pioneer Super Drive in the Powermac. For now Pioneer doesn't have a dual layer drive yet. It announced the DVR-A08XL for August though which should be available for Powermac thereafter.
 
just throw one in and there is a patch for unsupported drives to be supported just like regular superdrive from apple so you can use it with itunes idvd ect.
 
the lacie drive is either over priced or top of the line.

i bought a NEC dual layer DVD burner (2510A) today for $135 Canadian, roughly $100 USD. BUT, it is internal, although, you can buy enclosures super cheap.
 
adamfilip said:
But i want it to burn dual layer dvd's
Click to expand...

Is the media even available for those yet? It doesn't do you much good to have a dual layer burner if you don't have any dual layer media--or if a single dual layer disk costs as much as a spindle of DVD-R media.

I'd say you should pick something else to worry about for about a year.
 
they're out, but they aren't in wide release yet.. best price i've found is $8.36/pc (100 spindle)

I would wait til all the spec are finalized. it really makes no sense unless you want to pirate movies with full quality. (and they dont work in my stand-alone dvd players)
 
Mr. G4 said:
My guess is that Apple puts only Pioneer Super Drive in the Powermac. For now Pioneer doesn't have a dual layer drive yet. It announced the DVR-A08XL for August though which should be available for Powermac thereafter.
Click to expand...
It says on the spec sheet that this drive will support DVD+RW - something Apple hasn't done. Will this drive really go in the G5s, or will Apple be stupid and have them produce a DVD-RW (only) option??
 
carletonmusic said:
It says on the spec sheet that this drive will support DVD+RW - something Apple hasn't done. Will this drive really go in the G5s, or will Apple be stupid and have them produce a DVD-RW (only) option??
Click to expand...

I read somewhere that the existing 8X SuperDrives support DVD+/-RW, but that Apple's software/drivers only enable the DVD-RW functionality. I'm no expert, just repeating received superstition.

Cheers,


Crikey
 
carletonmusic said:
It says on the spec sheet that this drive will support DVD+RW - something Apple hasn't done. Will this drive really go in the G5s, or will Apple be stupid and have them produce a DVD-RW (only) option??
Click to expand...

I don't know about the G5 but the super drive in the Powerbook burn the two formats fine.
 
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