DD1603 Optorite Sanyo HD-BURN

[bandai1983]

Does anyone know if the DD1603 uses HD-BURN? I've only heard of speculation that it had a Sanyo chipset and might support this feature. My DD-0201's board just fried. Also, was there a slightly newer model which supported HD-BURN? I am aware that they stopped making HD-BURN drives a long while ago but that is why I am asking. I need to regain the ability to read or back up my HD-BURN discs on something else. Also, I heard Plextor had Sanyo chipsets at a time. Was there ever custom firmware that unlocked the HD-BURN settings?

[nic2k4]

No, you can look at the box if you like. DD1205 is the last one I know that had it.

[bandai1983]

Thanks so much!! I guess I have to go get the DD1205.

[nic2k4]

Why? You do realize that most HDburn discs can only be read by Sanyo chipset drives. I forget exactly at which point the disc readability breaks, I think it's a bit over 800 MB, beyond that any other drive will fail to read the disc. If you absolutly must have HDburn, I would suggest you look at Plextor drives, either a PX-712A or PX-716A; the Optorite drives were somewhat flaky.

[bandai1983]

Interesting.. But Plextor was Gigarec, and I have that too, I also have a DD-CD drive from Sony. And of course the gd-rom drive on the dreamcast lol.

[nic2k4]

Same difference, those two Plextor drives use the same Sanyo chipset as the Optorite, but they have nicer tools. If my memory is good (I've owned both) you could set the size of the disc in the plextool gigarec tab and have some control on whether the other drives would be able to read the disc, but there was nothing like that for the Optorite. Are you building a collection or what?

[bandai1983]

Kinda. I have high density floppy drives too. But cool which Plextors had the Sanyo chipsets and can read or write hd-burn? And let me add, I have tried gigarec discs on all 4 drives, and they all read it. It's cool, but I wish hd-burn persisted so I'd have better features on it. It seemed to have a non failure rate in the burn and higher quality to me. And 1205 had 24x hdburn, sweet. Also I could've sworn there were faster models then 12x on the DDCD drives.

[[_chef_]]

Interesting.. But Plextor was Gigarec, and I have that too, I also have a DD-CD drive from Sony. And of course the gd-rom drive on the dreamcast lol.

Sadly that's useless knowledge, what counts is the real chipset inside and the support through the firmware....

For what do you want to use that "HD burn" feature?

[nic2k4]

Also I could've sworn there were faster models then 12x on the DDCD drives.

You're probably right, the PX-716 is a 16x burner with the Sanyo chipset. This may be due to Optorite being taken over (By Lite-on I believe). The technology being proprietary, manufacturers not wanting to get locked into a single chipset producer and bad timing with the arrival of cheap DVD burners made it a footnote in history.

Having that chipset makes the drive able to read the higher density discs from which ever burner produced it (even at the gigabyte limit), but it will be useless with anything else. The result is that High Density discs may not be readable in the future for lack of a compatible reader. OTH, discs burned to 3 inch DVD (about 1.2 GB, just trying to compare apples with apples, size wise) will still be readable in 10 years with Bluray drives (little extrapolation comparing with the longevity of DVD drives).

[bandai1983]

I have a PX-716A. It doesn't support HD-BURN. All the double density drives have different technology, they are not compatible with one another. Gigarec is the only one that uses regular cd compatible file structure so that's why it is compatible with most equipment. Also, I just collect drives with neat features. I bought drives back near 2004 and got 3 to 4 drives with undocumented features. So that's why I have this technology. But yes, I like collecting and using it. I will eventually get a Blu-Ray Drive. I have an HD-DVD drive. I wonder what sorts of new technology appeared with these new drives. I've been out of the loop of optical for awhile.