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High-Speed Burning Could Harm Pioneer Combo Drives

Posted by timothy on from the but-isn't-that-the-point-of-high-speed dept.

daffydory writes "Both New Scientist and The Register have articles about the Pioneer DVD writers (SuperDrives to us Apple users)." According to these articles, the drives "will bascially implode themselves with the new highspeed media that's coming out. Lovely. There's supposed to be a firmware patch to fix it, but it may be 'problematic' for users to install."

10 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. Problematic for some users? by faster · · Score: 3, Informative

    You mean because some versions of NT won't run the updater? Is that really a big deal? Boot a DOS floppy and try again, you'll lose a whole 3 minutes.

    I ran the updater on a W2k machine with one of those drives this morning, and it ran with no problems, and in the GUI.

    The drive is a little funky and slow and unreliable, but that's what you get when you buy stuff that's on the bleeding edge (as far as consumer products go, anyway). I've never seen an update make it worse, and I've installed 5 firmware updates on this drive.

    1. Re:Problematic for some users? by sacremon · · Score: 3, Informative

      Worked for me too. Not only that, it now recognizes the Ritek media that I use as 2x instead of 1x.

      --
      If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
  2. Great... by shepd · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not.

    What about those of us who bought this drive for a non-Microsoft operating system?

    Yay... an .exe file updater (for Windows and not DOS, I don't doubt). I think I'll just destroy my burner with the 4x media and get Pioneer to replace it (under warranty), if that's their attitude.

    --
    If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
  3. Problems? by The+Vulture · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Register article mentioned only problems with Windows NT - I used Windows 2000 with no problems at all. I have a Pioneer DVR-A04 that I bought about a month ago, retail box.

    Downloaded the upgrade, ran it. It detected my drive (hooked up as secondary slave, with a Pioneer DVD-ROM as primary slave), and flashed it. The drive rebooted itself, no problems. Took all of 30 seconds.

    The Register article mentioned only problems with Windows NT - I used Windows 2000 with no problems at all. I still don't have DVD recording working under Linux, but that's from a lack of time, not a lack of trying. Nero is so easy to use. :)

    What I'm curious of is that the firmware version number changed from 1.20 to 1.32, but they don't seem to have any changelogs on the Pioneer website. I'm curious only because I have a Compaq laptop that's rather flaky with DVD-R media (Presario 2715US), and I wanted to know if it was the firmware flash that helped, or the type of media I used (probably the media) that actually allowed it to read the DVD-R I made.

    -- Joe

  4. More Info by DeadBugs · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is the link to the Pioneer statement. This is only for the new 4X DVD-R and 2X DVD-RW discs that have just been approved by the DVD Forum. AFAIK these discs are not yet for sale. You can also get a free CD with the software update on it from Pioneer.

    --
    http://www.kubuntu.org/
  5. No fix for Apple users yet by gwernol · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Pioneer firmware fix won't work on SuperDrives installed in a Mac. As quoted from Macintosh Digital Hub:

    "So what's the resolution? For Mac users, that answer is a bit hazy. Pioneer is releasing updater software that tweaks the internal firmware in its drives so that they are able to use the high-speed media. This firmware updater will be available for download from Pioneer's Web site; you'll also be able to order it on a CD-ROM.

    But this updater will not work with SuperDrives, since they contain Apple's firmware. According to Pioneer senior vice president Andy Parsons, "Apple is aware of the issue, and we expect they will have a solution soon." Those of us with SuperDrives will have to wait or Apple to deliver a firmware update"

    --
    Sailing over the event horizon
  6. Re:But it's a 2.7 Speed Burner by mofu · · Score: 2, Informative

    Read the ****ing article! The disk trys to initialize the disk by reading an identifier on the disk. Since the drive don't recognize the new disk, it keeps trying, and trying, with the laser on all the time, overheating the media and the laser.

    Not sure how this is different from the laser running continuously while buring or playing, maybe because its concentrated on on area of the disk?

  7. And here's Pioneer's fix by BMonger · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/hs/

    Dunno why that isn't posted in the article...

  8. Read the linked article and you'd know already. by Otto · · Score: 3, Informative

    Also, how does new firmware keep a drive from self destructing? Sounds like an engineering problem that firmware couldn't fix, unless said firmware simply lowers the drive speed

    No, the unit tries to perform a test on blank media and it keeps retrying on the higher speed media for 5 minutes. The laser overheats and burns out. Foom, dead drive.

    The New Scientist article says this.

    --
    - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  9. Re:problematic? by RandomHavoc · · Score: 2, Informative

    Run the updater under DOS. It's a dual-mode app and works better under DOS. I couldn't get it to work under Win2k and under Win98se it made my drive stop working too. I tried DOS and now my drive works again.

    --

    --
    But then again I thought VCR+ was a stupid idea and would die a quick death--so what do I know?