DVD burner dual layer?

Johnny Blaze

Johnny Blaze

Big Baby Jesus
I have a 17" powerbook 1.67ghz with what I think is a superdrive. When I read about disc burning in the "about this mac" menu it doesn't say anything about dual layer discs. The burner is a matshita uj-845e, will it allow me to burn dual layers?

Thanks
 
Panasonic lists it as DL + R writing capable and it's supposedly the same drive used in iMac G5 models that are DL capable, however the the early 1.5/1.67MHz G4 PBs (i.e. not the most recent/current models) were blocked from DL burning via firmware. So the answer is no, it's not possible...unless a firmware hack surfaced (which would be a bad idea to even consider).

The current line of PBooks (15/17) use the UJ-846 drive and DL is enabled.
 
That link was informative. Thanks man.

What exactly do you mean by "Apple crippled it in firmware" and why want interest would they have in making a dual layer drive not burn dual layer discs?
 
Same interest as keeping iBooks and iMacs graphics down by allowing a second monitor to only repeat what is one the main screen, to not give two different screens to not compete with some other products...
 
why in the world would they change the firmware like that? I don't understand what Apple are getting out of it. Surely if they listed DL burning in their list of features it would attract more people. certainly couldn't help.

must be a reason... anyone know? (sorry Giaguara, but I didn't quite follow your answer :S )
 
She was referring to the firmware limits imposed on other Mac systems: like the iBook video cards where you can only mirror a display (screen-spanning is disabled) and resolutions over 1024x768 are disabled (even though the card can handle higher).

There's various reasons as to why...one reason I've heard on the PBooks DL thing was the previous drive (UJ-845) drew too much power. Evidentially they've managed to fix that with the new version (UJ-846). Sounds viable, but that could just be someone shooting off BS...personally I'd never try burning a DVD off battery, especially not a DL one.
 
UmarOMC said:
http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_all.php
Click to expand...
I'd STRONGLY that no one use a firmware hack, especially from that site. This is especially true if you're still under warranty from Apple, since that will void it.

Besides the obvious related issues, the hack they have there is not for the drive in the Apple laptops. They only have one for the UJ-845S model (Toshiba laptops). It may or may not be different...that's something that's debatable but needs to be kept in mind.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top