12" Powerbook not playing DVD-R

[xjeffx]

Hello everybody. Been a long time lurker to this site and I finally just purchased a dvd burner. Optorite DD0203 to be exact. Using the guides here, I have made some great backups using DVDShrink and DVDDecrypter. They play in my PC's DVD-ROM, my standalone player, and my brother's iBook's combo drive. But I can't for the life of me, get one to play in my 12" Powerbook's combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW). I took some of my discs into the Apple store yesterday and tested them on every mac in the store. They work on every one, except the 12" Powerbook with combo drive, and the new iBook G4 with combo drive (which uses the same model drive, slot loading Matshita CD-RW CW-8122).

The tech at the store wasn't too helpful. Said to try some good media like the Apple stuff which I am having the same results with. I can't imagine that they would ship a drive with their products that couldn't even read their own Apple DVD-R media.

So does anybody have any experience playing DVD-R's on their 12" powerbook drive? If so what media are you using?

My Optowrite drive is connected to my PC and I'm burning in DVDDecrypter or DVDShrink/Nero6. I've tried nero's DVD-Video setting, UDF, UDF/ISO, and ISO. All with no luck on the mac.

I've used:
Fuji 4x DVD-R
Apple 4x DVD-R
GQ Great Quality 1x-4x DVD-R (only burns at 2x)
and the Taiyo Yuden DVD+R that came with the burner.

I even threw the dvd burner into my firewire case and used Toast to burn a disc, but made two coasters because of buffer underrun. I guess firewire isn't fast enough.

Any help is very much appreciated. The main reason I bought this burner is so I can watch my backed up movies on the road. I travel 2-3 weeks out of each month and I'm destroying my DVDs. If my powerbook can't play them I don't know what I'm going to do

Thanks in advance

[ps2daddy]

Well that is weird I would have though it was a media issue also well the only other thing I can think of is try burning at 1x and see what happens.

The optowrite is a sanyo drive it should be ok

I know some people that burn at 4x with firewire using powerbooks without problems.

I can burn at 1x for games and movies with my 366mhz ibook via firewire drive and it works fine

or

you can use dvdbackup to make a video_TS folder then use dvd shrink to make it smaller and then run the video_ts folder from your harddrive if worse comes to worse

That would be weird if they had an issue with that computer but probably not impossible have you tried contacting apple you might have to get a drive replacement (esp if you are still under apple care)


Try to see if you can get ana apple dvd-r from another dvd writer source and see if it works.

[xjeffx]

Thanks I'll try to find somebody with another writer and go from there. I forgot to mention that not only do the discs not play, they don't even mount. The computer doesn't even see them. With the DVD+R actually, it came up as an unrecognizable disc, but the -r's don't even spin when they go into the drive. I originally thought it was an issue with my actual drive, until I tried the others at the store and the same drive in the other powerbooks did the same thing. It's like us 12" combo drive owners are screwed.

[galactica]

thats really odd that it would only be the 12" models.

have you tried calling apple tech support rather than tech at the apple store. I find that they often dont know what they are talking about (especially when it comes to less common problems)
they totally overlooked a problem my brother was having with his iMac and all it was was the store we bought it from had the wrong type of memory in the mac and jaguar was rejectnig the memory.

any how, call apple tech support 1-800-MYAPPLE or even calling your apple store and have them transfer you

[NoHelpWhatSoEver]

DVD-R's mount and start to play on my 12" powerbook with combo drive. Although they tend to error out toward the end of the disc. I use and tested TDKs, Riteks, real Maxells and fake Maxells. They all basically react the same way. I use an external DVD burner so it hasn't been too much of a problem, but I wish I hadn't cheaped out on the superdrive sometimes.

[jchansen]

This is NOT a media problem. This is a known issue; there is an Apple forum about it, but Apple has not been forthcoming with any fix. Some models of Powerbook use a drive that is not fully compliant with DVD-R. It is probably a firmware issue, and there doesn't seem to be any way around it. My powerbook is the same way.

[xjeffx]

Thanks guys. I'm going to go try some TDK's for the heck of it. Jchasen, do you have a link to that forum? I've been searching everywhere for a few days for info on this, I'd be interested to see what other people are saying about it.

Thanks

[jchansen]

I had to search for a long time to find it. It was in the titanuim powerbook forum; search for something like 'dvd-r'. I'm sorry I can't point to it specifically.

[ps2daddy]

Well I saw reports of some people saying that it was not working and reports of some people saying that it was working.

If you goto the apple.com homepage and look under support and discussion groups navigate to the 12in powerbook section and do a search on combo drive dvd-r or combo dvd-r.

[NoHelpWhatSoEver]

Not to get into the old to label or not to label debate, but I just noticed that my Powerbook seems to error out on discs with labels, but not on unlabeled ones.

[xjeffx]

Gonna try some TDK's tonight! Thanks guys

[xjeffx]

Well I've tried just about every media out there with no luck. DVD-R just doesn't seem to be read by every 12" powerbook combo drive I can find. Including the ones at the apple store. I did find a workaround though. Panther can read DVD+R so ordered it the other day and should receive it tomorrow. Glad I bought the Dual Format burner!

Thanks for your advice guys, and I hope that my conclusion helps somebody with this same problem.