Questions about Pioneer DVR-109 with Powermac G4/400

[mac.friend]

hi, my name ist jeff,

I'm new to this board. I work with MACs since 1989 and live in Germany so please excuse any spelling mistakes to me.

And now to my first question:
Few days ago I bought a new dvd-writer on recommendation of a friend - the pioneer DVR-109 - to exchange it against the DVD-ROM which was shipped within my Powermac G4/400 Sawtooth in the year 2000 and which was broken now. I was able to do this without any problem. Than I turned on my Mac and I put a DVD ("Toy Story" - from my sons) in the drive. The Apple-DVD-Player started and I was asked to choose a region-code. I never heard about a region-code before, so I don’t have had any knowledge which number I should choose from the list. I quitted Apple-DVD-Player without making a change. Than I asked a friend which code is the proper one for Germany. He told me it must be regioncode "2" for Germany. After this I put the Toy-Story-DVD in the drive again and launched Apple-DVD-Player. But to my surprised it started to play the movie without any question for a regioncode.

Is it possible, that the regioncode was changed automatic to the DVR-109 by quitting the Apple-DVD-player? I tried several DVD's and they worked all without any question.


Second question:
I visited the Pioneer homepage and noticed, that there is no offer for MAC user to load a firmware-update for any Pioneer drive - they only supports WINDOWS.
I didn't knew about this fact, as I decided to bought the Pioneer drive. If I had known about this earlier, I think I had decided another product.
Is there any opportunity to make a firmware-update to the DVR-109 on my MAC later, if it will be released ...

Thank You for your help!

Jeff

[Pengu]

ok.. a few things..

im not sure about the region code thing...

there are several third party apps for flashing/updating the firmware in pioneer drives.. check this page out: http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/action...=34209&-search

for finder/itunes/disc burner (apple software) integration, goto www.patchburn.de and get patch burn 3..

[mac.friend]

hi pengu,

thanks for your reply. I will keep an eye on the site you mentioned, for a new release of the firmware installer for Pioneer drives with OSX.

About the existence of the "Pacthburn" tool I've already known - it works fine for me.

...and about my first question - the "Region Code thing" - I found out something by myself: There's a small app called "DVD Info X1.02". It show you all the information about your drive, like region settings and remaining changes....
Obviously the regioncode will be set automaticly, according to the DVD you play - if you don't make any selection.

mac.friend