DVR-104 2X woes

[rockinsage]

I'm having troubles with an internal Pioneer DVR-104 (A04) in my MDD dual G4 ( OS 10.2.8 ). These same problems existed with 10.2.6.

Problem is that I seem unable to burn at the advertised 2x speed from Toast 5.2. My DRV has been updated to the latest 1.33 firmware available for the Mac (though I was having this problem before the firmware update as well). I've tried 2x burning with two DVD-R brands (TDK 2x and Memorex or Maxell, don't remember). Every time I will get a SENSE KEY/MEDIUM ERROR.

I do have the buffer underrun prevention checkbox selected, do I need to uncheck this to do a 2x burn?

If I burn at 1x, all is well. Though even with 1x burns on TDK media, I'm getting weird video glitches and audio dropouts near the end of the DVD. Didn't have these dropouts with Memorex (or Maxell).

Is anyone successfully burning at 2x with an internal DVR-104 and Toast 5? If so, with what DVD-R brand(s)?

Thanks...

[galactica]

its the media!

those are perhaps the WORST media brands you can buy.... if you read the forum a lot LOTS of people have problems with those medias

Lesson learned --- you get what you $ for

Try something like TDK 2x
Verbatim 2x
or even Ritek 1-4x (will do 2x on your drive)

DOH just read your post closer... the TDK's you get are the the same as in the link I posted?! Ive never had problems with those babies....

[G13]

This will fix your problem:


Restart while holding down the Option, Command, F, O keys.

After Prompt, type:
reset-nvram

Hit Return

Next type:
reset-all

Hit Return. If you done correctly, your Mac will restart.


After Restart, your problem should be fixed. Start Toast and burn away. Definitely use buffer-underrun protection.

This problem was most likely caused by using bad media, specifically OEM Maxell (I've had similar problems with generic media from Supermediastore & Meritline). To prevent this problem from reoccurring, stick with TDK 2X Media.

[rockinsage]

Galactica:

DOH just read your post closer... the TDK's you get are the the same as in the link I posted?! Ive never had problems with those babies....

Yep, I actually had more problems with those TDK's than the Maxell or Memorex.

G13:

This problem was most likely caused by using bad media, specifically OEM Maxell (I've had similar problems with generic media from Supermediastore & Meritline). To prevent this problem from reoccurring, stick with TDK 2X Media.

I used that trick so fix something else a while ago. Are you saying that using cheap media originally caused this problem to surface, and the way to correct it is to reset the nvram? Hmmm... very interesting. I'll give it a try.

[jazzman]

How do you associate the firmware version with Apple's device revision? For instance my Quicksilver has a DVR-104 with a revision A227. I would like to burn at 2x with a certain Ritek brand of DVD-R but I am not sure if I have to go forward or backward in firmware from where I am presently. To quote Meritline's page: "Stable 2X if you have a Pioneer 104/A04 Drive on Firmwire version 1.31, 1x if you have other dvdr drives or other version of Firmwire"

[G13]

rockinsage - yes, your problem originally surfaced because of bad media. until you reset nvram (also known as zapping firmware), both good media and bad media will most likely give you errors. i have had this problem 2 different times, and both times the problem was fixed by zapping the firmware.

jazzman - with apple's firmware for factory installed superdrives you will only be able to burn at 1x with those particular ritek dvd's. if your superdrive wasn't factory installed you could have used pioneer's firmware. with pioneer's firmware you would be able to burn at 2x. i tried flashing my factory installed superdrive with pioneer's firmware, but the superdrive would only work with apple's firmware. supposedly, an apple superdrive can be flashed with pioneer's firmware (windows version) if you install the drive inside a pc.

[jazzman]

Well I have one glimmer of hope yet. I upgraded an old Sawtooth AGP G4 with a Pioneer 103 and a Sonnet G4 1 gig single processor cpu card. What are the steps to 1. Determine it's current pioneer firmware version, and 2. Change it to the desired 1.31 version? Is it still a transplant for programming situation? Thanks in advance.