BDR-206 and Taiyo Yuden

[ccarag]

Just bought the Pioneer 206 internal drive and installed on my MacPro computer. Using Toast 10, it appears that the BDR-206 does NOT like the Taiyo Yuden BD-R discs. During the "write"process in Toast, it just sits there and the progress bar does not move. I was only testing a 15 second HD clip and I waited 15 minutes and nothing happened.

I read a couple of posts where the LTH discs are lesser quality and maybe that's why I was not able to have a successful burn.

Any others having a similar situation?

Cyril

[hech54]

It's possible that TY's Blu Ray discs are not very good....but I'd go for "User Error" first.

[jman98]

I read a couple of posts where the LTH discs are lesser quality and maybe that's why I was not able to have a successful burn.

You have misunderstood what you read. The problem with LTH is NOT a quality problem. It's a DIFFERENCE problem. They are somewhat different from what for lack of a better term I will call "normal" BD-R discs. The format can be manufactured on DVD production lines whereas "normal" BD-R discs cannot and require some new equipment to produce.

I don't trust ANYTHING that Roxio makes, including Toast. If your Pioneer was made in the last couple of years it should support the BD-R LTH discs. I've been using them on my Momitsu BluRay player, which is incredibly fussy, and they've worked without any problems. I'm using the Taiyo Yuden BD-R LTH discs. I like the discs and feel that they are quality media.

[ccarag]

Thanks for the clarification. The only thing I can do now is to try different media. It's kinda frustrating that Toast just kinda sits there and does nothing. No messages. Notta. It would be helpful if it would have given me some kind of feedback.

Hopefully, I'll have better luck with a different brand.

[hech54]

It's kinda frustrating that Toast just kinda sits there and does nothing. No messages. Notta.

If you insist on being as vague as possible as to what exactly you are doing and what it is you are hoping to accomplish/create...you'll be here talking to yourself. People WILL get sick of guessing. Just like you can't burn a video file to a DVD and have it play in a DVD player....the same sure as hell goes for Blu ray....and Blu Ray discs "ain't cheap" compared to blank DVDs.

[ccarag]

Dude. Chill out man. Read my first post. I clearly describe what I was trying to accomplish. I was just doing a test burn on a 15 second HD clip. I bought the BDR-206 drive and am attempting to burn it with Toast which just sits there and not complete the burn process.

I have a Mac Pro and am running 10.6.8. I wish DVD Studio Pro would be compatible with Bluray but Apple has clearly failed in this arena. They're leaders in everything except this.

[hech54]

Dude. Chill out man. Read my first post. I clearly describe what I was trying to accomplish.

No....you didn't. Just like a DVD...you can't just burn any old video file to a Blu Ray....unless of course you want to burn a DATA disc that you never intend to watch on your television. Just like DVD.....a playable Blu Ray disc must be AUTHORED. Did you instruct Toast to AUTHOR a playable Blu Ray disc for you?

[lordsmurf]

They're leaders in everything except this.

Whoa, back up.... Apple isn't leading anything when it comes to the realm of video. In fact, a Mac is only good at certain tasks, certain workflows. Part of your problem is that a Mac is the wrong tool for a Blu-ray workflow. It's like trying to beat in a nail with a screwdriver.

[ccarag]

Lordsmurf -- of course Mac is the wrong tool for a Bluray workflow. There basically is none. Until Apple makes DVDSP compatible with bluray, there ain't a solution on the Mac platform.

Getting back to hech54 -- of course you have to tell Toast to "author" a dvd. You can't just drag a file to the interface and expect magic to happen. So the answer is yes, I did the right things to instruct Toast to author a dvd.

[orsetto]

I've used Macs alongside PCs for many years: they once had some great advantages, but lately Apple seems hell-bent on rendering the damn things useless as anything but iPhone docks. I can't remember the last time I bothered attempting any video work on a Mac. But aside from some truly maddening and pointless Apple incompatibilities, you may actually be experiencing the typical Pioneer idiocy where they inexplicably insist on selling twenty different versions of the same damn drive: several of them specifically crippled and prohibited from use in Macs for no apparent reason. You need to check the complete extended model number of your particular Pioneer 206 drive against the list of 206 models that are approved for Mac installation.

It may not be your MacPro, 10.6.8, or Toast- you may simply have a "Mac-incompatible" Pioneer 206 version. If brand new, perhaps you can get it exchanged or refunded. A couple versions said to be Mac-compatible are BDR206BKMP and BDR206BK. Version BDR206DBK is known to be incompatible. No idea why- one would assume in 2011 a SATA drive is a SATA drive. And we wonder why Pioneer went bankrupt three years ago.

[ccarag]

I think I just figured out the problem. The 206D version I purchased is only compatible with Windows OS.

[hech54]

Getting back to hech54 -- of course you have to tell Toast to "author" a dvd. You can't just drag a file to the interface and expect magic to happen. So the answer is yes, I did the right things to instruct Toast to author a dvd.

Why would you do something like that? This is a Blu Ray disc we are talking about.....right?

[lordsmurf]

I think I just figured out the problem. The 206D version I purchased is only compatible with Windows OS.

How do you figure? Drives connect to the computer on the hardware level. To say an optical drive is incompatible with a certain OS is about as silly as saying a hard drive can't work with Mac.

[orsetto]

I think I just figured out the problem. The 206D version I purchased is only compatible with Windows OS.

How do you figure? Drives connect to the computer on the hardware level. To say an optical drive is incompatible with a certain OS is about as silly as saying a hard drive can't work with Mac.

There's a difference between the HDD and optical low-level interfaces on Macs: Apple has an irritating history of munged compatibility with many bog-standard optical drives. It's been a much smaller problem in OSX than it was in "Classic" Mac OS9 and earlier, but it still bites people now and then. Its more of a motherboard/hardware issue than an OSX software issue: it doesn't get much attention because no one in their right mind has actually bought one of the ridiculous Mac Pro towers in ages (Jobs utter abandonment of the pro creative market + stupendously overpriced and outdated tower engineering = remarkably unpleasant tower experience). There is something in the MacPro motherboards that requires a slight tweak to optical drive firmware: most drives incorporate the tweak as a matter of course. Pioneer (being the royal screwups that they are) insist on distributing multiple versions of the same drives with different firmware, some Mac Pro Tower compatible and some not. This really surprises me, given "Pioneer" hasn't really existed since late 2007 as anything but a brand label- I thought I saw a statement that actual mfring of drives was taken over by Sharp or somebody, who you think would have more of a clue. Apparently the idiots that designed ten versions of every Pioneer burner going back to 2002 are still running the optical division.

[hech54]

There is an Amazon review that says it does not work on a Mac.

[lordsmurf]

There is an Amazon review that says it does not work on a Mac.

I don't trust most Amazon reviews -- too many are written by idiots.

[lordsmurf]

"Pioneer" hasn't really existed since late 2007 as anything but a brand label- I thought I saw a statement that actual mfring of drives was taken over by Sharp or somebody, who you think would have more of a clue. .

That's not accurate.

Pioneer still makes their own drives, and Pioneer drives are always the best ones on the market. The second place is the one that keeps changing. It's still Samsung right now, followed by OptiArc and then LiteOn.

[usually_quiet]

Getting back to hech54 -- of course you have to tell Toast to "author" a dvd. You can't just drag a file to the interface and expect magic to happen. So the answer is yes, I did the right things to instruct Toast to author a dvd.

You instructed Toast to author a DVD, and burn to BD? I hope that was a slip of the tongue.

Even if it had worked, that would cause a problem. You need a Blu-Ray file structure for a playable BD.

[orsetto]

"Pioneer" hasn't really existed since late 2007 as anything but a brand label- I thought I saw a statement that actual mfring of drives was taken over by Sharp or somebody, who you think would have more of a clue. .

That's not accurate.

Pioneer still makes their own drives, and Pioneer drives are always the best ones on the market. The second place is the one that keeps changing. It's still Samsung right now, followed by OptiArc and then LiteOn.

If its not accurate, blame Pioneer- its from their own statements, released when they tanked as a company. As their frantic divisional buyout and co-production arrangements were in flux, the followup announcements weren't much clearer. The last few DVD drive revisions weren't in-house, even before the crisis, according to forensic reviews here and elsewhere. Pioneer-designed DVD/CD burners peaked around the time of DVR-111 but declined in several respects after that: many here long since switched over to Samsung as their default choice. Pioneer has not had uncontested supremacy since their days as SuperDrive supplier for the Mac G4.

The Pio BD drives are a more premium product, better liked than the later Pio DVD burners, but they do continue the "multiple versions with random incompatibility, firmware and feature issues" policy that dates back to the DVR-104. So if you aren't installing a Pioneer drive in a generic Windows box, it pays to check with specialty dealers for the specific Pioneer versions recommended for your system. I'm a Pioneer fan: I love their late-lamented DVD/HDD recorders, and use their burners in all my PCs (and the Macs that don't insist on Matsushita). But they've had their ups and downs, like every other electronics company.

[lordsmurf]

I think you're confusing the changeover from NEC to Mediatek chipsets with something else.
Pioneer drives are manufactured and designed by Pioneer.
The 111 was one of the best drives ever made, in terms of burning quality.

[Kerry56]

Pioneer dvd drives are manufactured by QSI (Quanta Storage Inc.) a Chinese company of terrible reputation on manufacturing quality and quality control. Ever since they switched to this source, the Pioneer drives have been lackluster at best. They are no longer a top tier name in dvd drives.

Their higher priced blu ray drives haven't seen as much downturn in quality, as they apparently choose to pay more attention to this subset of drives. Probably higher profit in them.