External DVD burner with 10.x

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wooly-booger

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Does anyone know if iDVD and iTunes and the OS can write to an external DVD burner via the firewire port in a Pismo (G3/500)?

Thanks
 
wooly-booger said:
Does anyone know if iDVD and iTunes and the OS can write to an external DVD burner via the firewire port in a Pismo (G3/500)?

Thanks
Click to expand...
System Requirements for iDVD
To run iDVD 3 you need a SuperDrive equipped iMac, eMac, Power Mac G4, or PowerBook G4 running Mac OS X v 10.1.5 or later (v 10.2.2 or later recommended) and at least 256 MB of RAM.
This means, you don't have a G4 processor, or an internal Apple supplied SuperDrive. Either one rules out iDVD for your system.

iTunes is a maybe, you'd just have to try it. Some externals seem to work OK, but not all.
 
iTunes may burn audio CDs... check Apple's site for drive compatibility with iTunes.

iDVD and DVD Studio Pro will not burn to anything except an Apple-branded internal DVD drive. To use an external drive, you'll have to use 3rd party DVD burning software like Roxio's Toast.
 
If you have/get a drive based on the Pioneer AV-105 or 106, you shouldn't have a problem. (This may involve dropping an internal drive into a Firewire enclosure...)
 
Even if you take an Apple-supplied internal drive and put it into a FireWire enclosure, it's still not gonna work... the drive has to be connected to the ATA/ATAPI bus in order for iDVD or DVD Studio Pro to recognize it.

Some sites do sell Apple-branded (read: Apple firmware) drives that you can install internally that will work. Here is one that will: http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm?ID=6192&Item=PIODVRA06

Edit: I see you're using a Pismo, so that link I posted would be no good... sorry! I don't think the Pismo ever came with any recordable media drives, although I'm sure some aftermarket drives could be installed. I think you're SOL with the iDVD and DVD Studio Pro for now, unless someone can point you to some sort of hack or internal drive that will work.
 
iDVD requires a G4, the Pismo won't do that unless the processor is upgraded, even then the buit-in drive is still needed. So there's at least 2 strikes against iDVD
 
That's also true, I missed that -- but even if it were upgraded, Apple's software uses the machine's hardware ID to determine the processor -- and that doesn't change with a processor upgrade. Case in point: I tried to install SoundTrack (which requires a 500MHz G4 processor) on my G4/500MHz upgraded G4/Yikes! machine, which never originally shipped with a 500MHz processor and it refused to install... why? Because the hardware ID tells the software that I don't have a 500MHz machine... bummer!
 
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