iMac G5 2x Burn

[ninja86]

I have been playing around with my iMac G5 at work (lucky me!) and it seems that even though it has a 4x rated SuperDrive, it burns only at 2x speed.

I was using Roxio Toast 6.0.5 with Ritek 4x media. I did some searches online and found quite a few people saying that the Matshita UJ-825 is SUPER picky. From what I heard one guy could only get a Fuji disc to burn under 4x.

I just wanted to put the word out because I hadn't seen anything here about it yet. I would hate for someone to buy this only to feel duped later.

If anyone has any info about upgrading the firmware or anything please reply.

[galactica]

Have also heard this, and yes its a picky drive
The only optoin is to keep looking for a media type that it does like

You tried TDK 4x disks?

[ninja86]

I just got some TDKs that I haven't tried yet.

Does anyone out there know of any "good" media for this computer?

This kind of bums me out. I guess I'll just have to return my new iMac. Yeah right!

[sjk]

Maximum Toast burn speeds for different media with my iMac G5's MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-825 drive:

Media; DVD Media Inspector ID; Toast burn speed

Fujifilm DVD-R 8x; Prodis..cF01; 2x
Ritek DVD-R 4x; RITEKG..04; 4x
Ritek DVD-RW 4x; RITEKW..04; 2x
Ritek DVD+R 8x; RITEK...R03; 4x
TDK DVD-R 4x; TTG01; 4x

I'm disappointed with the Fujifilm media. I bought it with hopes to burn 8x with my eMac's A107(?) drive but the max is 4x. And the 2x max 2x with the UJ-825 is lame.

So far I'm satisfied with all the Ritek media I've bought from Amazon.com. Only one bad burn that seemed to be caused by trouble with the UJ-825. I haven't tried Ritek DVD-R 8x media since it's not available anywhere that's affordable enough (e.g. shipping rates to HI are too high).

I'll continue using the eMac's drive for most burning since it's been reliable and will typically be faster.

[decay]

have you tried Toast 6.0.7 as well?

[sjk]

The burn rates I listed are the highest ones available with Toast 6.0.7 after inserting media in the UJ-825 drive. With Ritek media Toast*always auto-selects Best but with TDK it defaults to 4x.

DVD-R/RW media:

% drutil status
 Vendor   Product           Rev 
 MATSHITA DVD-R   UJ-825    DBN7

           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

% drutil status
 Vendor   Product           Rev 
 MATSHITA DVD-R   UJ-825    DBN7

           Type: DVD-R                 Name: /dev/disk1
      Cur Write: 31xCD /  4xDVD    Sessions: 0
      Max Write: 31xCD /  4xDVD      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

DVD+R media:

% drutil status
 Vendor   Product           Rev 
 MATSHITA DVD-R   UJ-825    DBN7

           Type: DVD+R                 Name: /dev/disk1
      Cur Write: 31xCD /  4xDVD    Sessions: 0
      Max Write: 31xCD /  4xDVD      Tracks: 0
   Overwritable:  510:01:29          blocks:  2295104 /   4.70GB /   4.38GiB
     Space Free:  510:01:29          blocks:  2295104 /   4.70GB /   4.38GiB
     Space Used:   00:00:00          blocks:        0 /   0.00MB /   0.00MiB
    Writability: appendable, blank, overwritable

I've left out Sony DVD+RW media that was used a few times in the eMac's DVR-107D drive (with mixed results) before I had DVD-RW.

I usually create disk images for burning, especially to write-once media.