[Fooboy]

Hey guys ... I searched and I couldn't find a thread on this so apologies if one already exists.

I am only able to burn at 2x on my 17" Intel iMac / 1.5 GB Crucial Ram with an 8x Superdrive (on 16x media). I poked around a little on the internet and found out that many other people are having this issue, with lots of different kinds of media (different brands of DVDs and different speeds 8x, 16x).

If you open up Terminal and type in "drutil status" it will tell you what kind of drive / revision you have. I have the following ...

Vendor Product Rev
MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-846 FB2U



You can see there I ran that with a DVD in, and it said max write is 2x.

Apparently this drive is giving a lot of people trouble and I guess is THE drive being put in Intel iMacs right now. I called the Apple Store that just acatually replaced my Superdrive (becuase it wouldn't burn at all) and a tech there said their drives there were burning at 8x ... ok, I asked him to run "drutil status" and they have Pioneer drives in their display iMac in the store. Maybe those drives don't suck. I hope Apple will fix this? Try googling "MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-846 FB2U" and you'll get some good hits on the subject.

I am curious if this issue is only related to the Matshita DVD drives ... and if any of you guys have the Pioneer Drive.

EDIT: Apparently you can just get this information under system profiler as well, except burn speed.

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-846:

Firmware Revision: FB2U
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 0 KB <<< ?
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media: No

[Brave Ulysses]

Same problem. Same Drive. Err.

[rminkler]

Same here - with 4x and 8x dvd-r discs it only reports 2x burning speeds. Anecdotally, I have been very frustrated with how long it takes to burn DVDs - I back up lots of photographs to DVD, and it takes forever.

[PB PM]

Same thing happens with some ibook superdrives. From what I have read, some DVDs themselves will not burn at full speed because they do not meet the requirements that Apple has for the drives to burn at 8x. So in other words, the issue with with the type of DVD, rather than the drive. Its been said that very few DVDs burn at full speed, excluding those you can buy from Apple of course.

[Fooboy]

Man ... I copied my user account information from the DVD's back to my computer ... and they copy slow as well.

These superdrives suck. Apple needs to change their specs to say 2x superdrive.

[Luca]

I wonder if Apple has modified the firmware to make these drives much less forgiving of "cheap" media? I also only get the option to burn at 2x with my 4x and 8x DVD-Rs when I'm in Finder, although with Toast I get the option to burn at whatever speed the drive and the media can handle.

I'm not using crappy media, either.

EDIT: There is some good discussion of this over at http://discussions.info.apple.com. If you just go into basically any hardware section and look in the CD/DVD subsection you'll probably find a discussion. Supposedly, only Apple-brand and TDK media will burn at the maximum speed. There's more info here, with links to discussion postings (EDIT: apparently they are links to discussions that have been deleted).

People are generally having problems with the UJ-835. Not sure about the UJ-846, though it might be affected by the same thing. One person said the problem came up after upgrading to 10.4 from 10.3, so it might have to do with changes in the drivers under 10.4. A few people mentioned firmware, and others mentioned a few types of media that actually work at full speed. I don't know what it is and Apple, of course, is not forthcoming.

[Satchmo]

Haven't checked mine but I will when I get home tonight. I haven't burned too many since I bought my iMac, and the times I have, I usually walk away and do something else. So perhaps I don't notice the speed difficiency.
But if it's not as advertised...I can just see the class action suit coming around the corner.

[Fooboy]

I'm not using crappy media, either.

Yea, Luca ... I hate that as well. Apparently people using respectable media that burns at higher speeds on other drives, but not on their Matshita, have the issue with the same media. They should at least have a disclaimer that says 8x* ... with Apple Approved Media, and list the media.

f you just go into basically any hardware section and look in the CD/DVD subsection you'll probably find a discussion.

I just searched "iMac Superdrive 2x" and got about a billion hits. Apparently its not limited to the imac line, but all a lot of machines with superdrives.

Supposedly, only Apple-brand and TDK media will burn at the maximum speed.

I think I will buy some TDK DVD's and test this out tonight. Does Walmart sell TDK, or do I need to go to Best Buy to get em?

EDIT: Well, apparently not. Check out this post from the link Luca posted above.

Update 06/01/2006 06:53pm (+11 GMT) Apple have decided to take my powerbook in for testing. At the Applestore, the tech was given multiple tests to do on the drive to determine the fault. Apple sent 2 DVD discs down, and I provided 4 for the test. The results are as follows: * Ritek 8x DVD-R. Available Speeds: 1x, 2x. 26 mins to burn 4Gb. * Princo 4x DVD-R. Available Speeds: 1x, 2x. 29 mins to burn 4Gb * Yoshi 8x DVD+R. Available Speeds: 2x. 25 mins to burn 4Gb * Datacell 4x DVD-R. Available Speeds: 1x, 2x. 29 mins to burn 4Gb * Apple 8x DVD-R. Available Speeds: 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x. 12 mins to burn 4Gb * TDK 16x DVD-R. Available SPeeds: 1x, 2x. 29 mins to burn 4Gb I believe that this test proves exactly what the problem is. Only 1 out of 6 discs actually worked anywhere near the correct speeds. Now to wait for Apples response.

Apparently then he got in touch with Apple about it.

I got a call from Janine Beach (Executive Relations, Apple Asia/Pac) to state that Apple regards that the problem with the SuperDrives (as reported here) is a correctly functioning SuperDrive. Apple's official line is that there is no problem burning on 8x Apple media so the drive is fine - even if it fails to recognise any other brand or speed of media. This means you can ONLY use Apple media in the drive - as even 16x TDK discs do not work correctly. There was no notification of the fact that Apple SuperDrives would only burn as advertised on Apple media - and when I stressed this point, I was told by Janine that the drive works as it should, and Apple would not be doing anything about it. After telling Janine that this was unacceptable, I was basically stonewalled.

I think that is really disturbing. They should at least provide a list of approved media that burns at 8x. I suspect if they did, it would only include Apple media.

Finally, this article sums it up nicely.

http://macdiscussion.com/article_sho...cle_id_var=262

So the solution is apparently the firmware on the drives. Will Apple give it to us?

[Fooboy]

Dont die thread!

[MrENGLISH™]

Originally Posted by Fooboy Dont die thread!

Here are my results from my 12" 1.5 PB G4 w/Memorex Printable DVD-R (8x) inserted:

Vendor Product Rev MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-845E DMP2 Type: DVD-R Name: /dev/disk1 Cur Write: 8x DVD Sessions: 0 Max Write: 8x DVD Tracks: 0 Overwritable: 510:46:46 blocks: 2298496 / 4.71GB / 4.38GiB Space Free: 510:46:46 blocks: 2298496 / 4.71GB / 4.38GiB Space Used: 00:00:00 blocks: 0 / 0.00MB / 0.00MiB Writability: appendable, blank, overwritable Media ID: RITEKG05

I'm seeing 8x.

[MrENGLISH™]

Results from my Quad G5 w/Memorex Printable DVD-R (8x) inserted:

Originally Posted by SUPERDRIVE Vendor Product Rev HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4165B C006 Type: DVD-R Name: /dev/disk4 Cur Write: 4x DVD Sessions: 0 Max Write: 8x DVD Tracks: 0 Overwritable: 510:38:38 blocks: 2297888 / 4.71GB / 4.38GiB Space Free: 510:38:38 blocks: 2297888 / 4.71GB / 4.38GiB Space Used: 00:00:00 blocks: 0 / 0.00MB / 0.00MiB Writability: appendable, blank, overwritable Media ID: RITEKG05

Originally Posted by LaCIE d2 Vendor Product Rev IDE-DVD DVDRW8651 LT25 Type: DVD-R Name: /dev/disk5 Cur Write: 2x DVD Sessions: 0 Max Write: 8x DVD Tracks: 0 Overwritable: 510:46:46 blocks: 2298496 / 4.71GB / 4.38GiB Space Free: 510:46:46 blocks: 2298496 / 4.71GB / 4.38GiB Space Used: 00:00:00 blocks: 0 / 0.00MB / 0.00MiB Writability: appendable, blank, overwritable Media ID: RITEKG05