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High-Speed Burning Could Harm Pioneer Combo Drives
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."
/dev/hdc on fire
I tried burning my drive really slow and it still damaged it..
She kinna take it anymore, captain! She's gonna blow!
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
Yup, now pirates will die a seething death as they burn music on their computers. Sucked into your own burner by an imploding disc... what a pyrotechnic ending!
Lovely how it gets published anyways. Yeah, these drives sure do implode. You know, computer equipment has just been known to do that sometimes. Implosion -- an accurate description of the observed phenomenom. If you are on crack.
There's supposed to be a firmware patch to fix it, but it may be 'problematic' for users to install.
Does problematic mean "I can't get to the machine to upgrade because there's shards of disc flying at me when I go near it!"?
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
I am not going to buy a DVD burner until the technology matures a little.
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
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.
Not.
.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.
What about those of us who bought this drive for a non-Microsoft operating system?
Yay... an
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
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/
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
According to Webster (Mostly) /-ti-k&l/ /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb
Main Entry: problematic
Pronunciation: "prä-bl&-'ma-tik
Variant(s): or problematical
Function: adjective
Date: 1609
1 a : posing a problem : difficult to solve or decide b : not definite or settled : UNCERTAIN c : open to question or debate : QUESTIONABLE
2 : expressing or supporting a possibility
synonym see DOUBTFUL
3 : launching shards of flaming polycarbonate embeded into the area around the head and neck
- problematically
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/hs/
Dunno why that isn't posted in the article...
"There's supposed to be a firmware patch to fix it, but it may be 'problematic' for users to install."
Huh? I downloaded and installed the patch last night for my DVR-104 drive, it took practically no time to perform, and I think the only possible source of confusion was the "Are you sure you want to do this? [Yes] [No]" prompt... and if you can't figure that much out, maybe you're not smart enough to operate a DVD-RW drive in the first place...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
Talk about extreme Digital Rights Management . . .
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.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I was really glad that it could... finally I could read and write DOS 1.4M floppy disks, Mac 1.4M floppy disks, 800K Mac floppies, and 720K Dos Floppies.
I can't wait to pull out my old 512Ke with the external SuperDrive and start burning DVDs!
Oh, you mean this is just another example of Marketing BuzzWord TermReuse? Crap.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
If you have a centrifuge that's imploding at high speeds, there's nothing wrong with the device -- there's something amiss with physics in your point in space. Get out of house and contact your nearest physicist right away.