Mac Super-drives

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kapovski

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Anyone have specific experience of Mac DVDF writers being low quality?
 
My Apple Branded DVD-Writer was a NEC. NEC makes good stuff, so no, not poor quality. (I flashed it to the NEC version to make it region free.) Writes to all DVD-R makes, Taiyo Yuden, Verbatim and even Sony.
 
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The Matsush*ta drives have already gained a reputation for being slow and noisey. They are also picky about which media you use.
 
Skeptik said:
The Matsush*ta drives have already gained a reputation for being slow and noisey. They are also picky about which media you use.
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All the ones in my numerous powerbooks, macbooks, and ibooks have been hassle free since day one - of course thats only about 10 machines so I dont really have much to base my opinion on.
 
Skeptik said:
The Matsush*ta drives have already gained a reputation for being slow and noisey. They are also picky about which media you use.
Click to expand...

First DVD-ROM was a Matsu****a. It's sold as a Creative, I bought it
back in 1998 and it still works. It was region free to boot, out of the box.

I would agree with you if you said SONY, but Matsu****a makes good stuff,
like Pioneer, NEC and Hitachi.
 
The Apple discussion forums are full of complaints about the MATSH1TA DVD-R UJ-846:. They used to delete (censor) comments at one point, but they've given up!

I have noticed a problem which has lately resulted in the rejection of any blank DVD media, regardless of brand, or a subsequent burn failure through Toast.

The iMac will burn CDs of any brand with no problem.
Inserting a blank DVD, however, will result in the drive spinning and coughing and then ejecting it. If, by chance, one stays in and I begin the burn process, it will fail with multiple errors such as "Hardware failure" followed by lots of numbers and letters.
Click to expand...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=786378&tstart=0
many more ...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=918303&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=922224&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=899919&tstart=30
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=892079&tstart=30
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=898226&tstart=30
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=882105&tstart=45

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=906538&tstart=30
(These are just a few in April 2007)

It is very picky about which media you put it. It very rarely writes at the speed advertised. Nobody has worked out which media (apart from unavailable Apple branded disks) works and why.
http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=-1&messageID=3714208
Please post the brand of media used if you have had success burning a DVD-R at 8X on the MAT****A UJ-846.
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http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4228834&#4228834

http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=-1&messageID=3898388

It also cannot be flashed so you have to reset the region until it locks (5 goes I think u have)


>>They have started to replace it with a different one I believe. The new one has it's own foibles.:rolleyes: <<
 
Skeptik said:
The Apple discussion forums are full of complaints about the MATSH1TA DVD-R UJ-846:. They used to delete (censor) comments at one point, but they've given up!
Click to expand...
Guess I should count my blessings - I haven't had a problem with the one in my mini. (the UJ-846).
 
No problems writing to Verbatim +R's with my UJ 857D at up to X6 speed. I only use verbatims +r's btw - I find them to have the best all round compatibility with DVD players. However, I don't use my macbook as a primary DVD copier - I use my desktop for that which has a Sony drive :eek: I mainly use the DVD in the Macbook for backups of my iTunes library.
Playing DVD's is another matter, it has not rejected any DVD thrown at it and there have been some weird ones I got from friends with movies on (DivX).

My next buy is a DVD player that does DivX and it must have HDMI support.
 
adsl3g said:
No problems writing to Verbatim +R's with my UJ 857D at up to X6 speed. I only use verbatims +r's btw - I find them to have the best all round compatibility with DVD players. However, I don't use my macbook as a primary DVD copier - I use my desktop for that which has a Sony drive :eek: I mainly use the DVD in the Macbook for backups of my iTunes library.
Playing DVD's is another matter, it has not rejected any DVD thrown at it and there have been some weird ones I got from friends with movies on (DivX).

My next buy is a DVD player that does DivX and it must have HDMI support.
Click to expand...
I call that my mini :)
 
adsl3g said:
Do you ever sleep??

How do you manage HDMI support on the Mini?
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I use the DVI or VGA output as my plasma is pre-hdmi (it only supports up to 720p) but if I needed HDMI all I'd need is one of these or something similar (preferably cheaper too!). The mini supports resolutions up to 1920 by 1200 pixels from the DVI.

EDIT - sleep? Whats that? Having kids sort of put the kibosh on that! :D

The mini makes perfect sense for me. I've encoded all my dvd's (ok almost all) to h264 and stuck them on a couple external, fortunately silent, fw400 500gb hdds. With the bluetooth keyboard and mouse it makes a great spare computer. Even if someone is watching tv I can still use it via remote desktop.
Skeptik said:
So you have had success burning a DVD-R at 8X then?
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I've had no problems with any of the media I've used - how much of it was 8x I have no idea. For my uses - and on that specific machine - reading is far more important that writing and that it has been faultless. All my laptop drives are matsh¡ta and they have all performed as advertised.
 
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Skeptik said:
The Apple discussion forums are full of complaints about the MATSH1TA DVD-R UJ-846:.<<
Click to expand...

That's one model though but National/Panasonic
makes some of the highest q stuff.
Its prolly because they now outsource to Chinese manufacturers
for dirt cheap or the Apple firmware is off or incompatible.
My Creative (Mr Matsu****a's drive) branded drive was made in Japan and it still
works perfectly.

My SONY DVD player was cracking up after just one year, while my Pioneer has been going strong 5 years.

My Mac Pro DVD-R(a NEC) is working well too. No complaints. Burns at full speed with no noises or errors.
 
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bwana said:
...I've had no problems with any of the media I've used - how much of it was 8x I have no idea. For my uses - and on that specific machine - reading is far more important that writing and that it has been faultless. All my laptop drives are matsh¡ta and they have all performed as advertised.
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If you haven't tested the speeds, then how do you know they perform "as advertised"?

I have this same issue with many Mac owners who will go to any lengths to speak highly of their machines, but ignore any faults or just haven't tested it properly. It's almost like a cult.

PeterCH said:
That's one model though but National/Panasonic
makes some of the highest q stuff.
Its prolly because they now outsource to Chinese manufacturers
for dirt cheap or the Apple firmware is off or incompatible.
My Creative (Mr Matsu****a's drive) branded drive was made in Japan and it still
works perfectly.

My SONY DVD player was cracking up after just one year, while my Pioneer has been going strong 5 years.

My Mac Pro DVD-R(a NEC) is working well too. No complaints. Burns at full speed with no noises or errors.
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Ahh, the CHINA syndrome. My biggest bugbear (I have a few :D )
Apple is letting the Chinese manufactures get away with a lot, because they are saving packets of dosh in having them built there.

I wish they would be like other makers and label precisely what hardware is in their boxes. It isn't easy to find this info out other than by visiting various discussion forums and review sites.
 
Skeptik said:
If you haven't tested the speeds, then how do you know they perform "as advertised"?

I have this same issue with many Mac owners who will go to any lengths to speak highly of their machines, but ignore any faults or just haven't tested it properly. It's almost like a cult.
Click to expand...
I can only go by the max speed the application reports when writing - I dont see that it is necessary to specifically test brand of disk I use. How much of your opinion is based on testing you have performed on that drive?

I'm sure to the uninformed it must seem rather cult like however I dont blindly support every apple product ever made.
 
I can personally attest to problems with the Matsu****a SuperDrive... definitely finicky with media.

Apart from that it worked flawlessly for 2 years, but now it's stopped reading 2 of the 3 media brands I've used most. (A very well documented issue with this drive) So I now have 100's of Gigs of archived material that are inaccessable.

Rather than replace the internal I'm going with a new external due to these problems.
 
MauiTime said:
I can personally attest to problems with the Matsu****a SuperDrive... definitely finicky with media.

Apart from that it worked flawlessly for 2 years, but now it's stopped reading 2 of the 3 media brands I've used most. (A very well documented issue with this drive) So I now have 100's of Gigs of archived material that are inaccessable.

Rather than replace the internal I'm going with a new external due to these problems.
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You have an iMac? Reason I ask is that I've just done some searching thorough apple discussions and even though my mini has the same Matsh¡ta DVD-R UJ-846 as the iMac I cant find any similar faults. I read over and over that it is a laser alignment issue so perhaps its to do with the orientation of the drive?
 
I do have an iMac bwana. (17" pre-iSight G5)

While it may indeed be a laser alignment shift causing problems, it's definitely not their orientation in iMacs. Just do a quick search for "mac mini superdrive issues - the petition" on Google and you'll see many other reports such as this one...

1414
Malcolm Kelly - Ireland - 21 April 2007.
My Superdrive has now failed to recognize or burn any media. It is a Mac Mini, less than a year old.
Click to expand...

While there are a hearty number of reports to be found online regarding these issues ultimately their number is infintesimal weighed against the number of actual matsu****a superdrives out there.

When my own problem first began my searches yielded dozens of similar reports as opposed to the thousands you would be sure to see if the problem was truly a manufacturing flaw and widespread.

Even the Pioneer 112D that I'm about to purchase has plenty of failure/problem reports and it's widely regarded as one of the most rock-solid and reliable drives you can buy. (and definitely a major improvement over the matsu****as)

It may just be the fact that I'm far more than a casual user of the drive having burned well over 400 DVDs in the last year. <shrugs>
 
Skeptik said:
The Apple discussion forums are full of complaints about the MATSH1TA DVD-R UJ-846
Click to expand...

OK, I'm confused. I just got my superdrive in the mail (for my Mini). It's a model
uj-846-c but there's no mention of Mat****a - it's labelled as a Panasonic (which doesn't inspire the world's greatest confidence either).

So is Mat****a and Panasonic the same thing?

Incidently, my HP notebook has Mat****a uj-840-d. Aside from the PCU, it's the best part of the notebook - has never given me issues, has never made a coaster, and happily reads poor quality medium DVD and/or DVDs that are damaged to the point where even my trusty old LG wouldn't read them.

Second question - where do you guys download firmware updates for these drives.

Third questeion - mabye we should compile a list of drive makes and models that either ship with the Macs or that are available as replacements. I know there's a highly regarded Pioneer DVDRW-DL available for the Mac Mini, but I cannot find the link now.
 
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