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PowerBook G4 SuperDrive Speed Bump Hack
George Wright writes "A guy called cynikal has managed to hack the firmware on the PowerBook G4's "Superdrive" (the Panasonic UJ-815A slimline slot loading DVD-R/RW burner) to enable DVD-R burning at 2x (instead of 1x), DVD-RW burning at 1x (instead of it being disabled), CD-R burning at 16x (instead of 8x) and CD-RW burning at 8x (instead of 4x). Thanks a lot cynikal! The drive now reports as a UJ-815A instead of a UJ-815, and has a firmware revision of D101 instead of the DOC4, DOCB or DWDB the PowerBooks came with. A firmware downgrader can be obtained from the same place to downgrade back to DOCB if you want to, and there is a discussion thread."
Non-official firmware things like this scare me. If it wasn't included by Apple, there's most likely a reason.
Caveat emptor. Even though it's free.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
"I did it and it didn't screw up my system" is actually fairly useful info, if the source can be trusted. No matter how many people post that it did or didn't work, each post is "+1 Informative". Certainly more informative than "I think it's stupid and you're stupid", which is what I believe you tend to see if you browse at 1.
b) Double the power (and thus increase the power consumption, and thus increase the heat output) of said drive. Consumers file class-action lawsuit over fried components and newly acquired lap-burns.
Think fast: You're Apple, which one do you pick?
I doubt it could enable DVD-RAM, since it's fundamentally different from DVD-R. That's like saying that it's too bad the new firmware doesn't enable DVD+R(W). This is more of an issue of the underlying hardware supporting it.
Is it just me, or another seriously important point being overlooked? I quite agree that heat is of a large concern, having access to (and a lot of experience with) both a 12 and 17 inch PowerBook, but seeing as these machines are laptops, they are frequently not plugged in to AC power.
Admittedly, trying to burn a DVD while moving the laptop around is not such a wise idea, but power consumption (and by direct extension: battery life) might also have been a valid [marketing?] reason for locking the speed of this drive down. Of course, is it any more energy efficient to burn twice as long at half the speed?
http://www.csreloaded.com
Of course, you should undoubtedly use caution when burning at speeds not recommended (and in fact restricted) by Apple: Use on a flat surface in no more than room temperature conditions. If you are extra cautious, you can purchase a cooling fan, put it in the refrigerator or heck, even resort to not installing this unsupported firmware.
"I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
Well this is all well and good but as soon as you start burning things at a higher rate than they were intended you start losing compatibility. In this, I mean, it will play in fewer player than it would if you did a nice slow burn at 1X. I have a 2x drive and still alter the OS (via iTunes) to burn at 1X.
I would test it throughly with a few standalone DVD players and have a backout plan. --
Daniel C. Slagle
Keeper of the "Unofficial" iMovie FAQ
Tell Apple how you feel about iMovie
Alas, your post is in vain. The parent of your post is the same guy/girl/thing posting the "It takes 20 minutes to copy a 17mb file on my 8600/9600/Dual 1Ghz G4 and my pentium pro with 64Mb of RAM is much faster" troll.
/.
It seems he's taken a new tack now, taking information he doesn't understand from an anti-Mac site that doesn't understand it either and posting it to every Apple thread on
Move along, nothing to see here.
this is no different than the pre-release builds of Apple software like Mac OS X.
when i use these things - i understand fully that they are not ready for use, they may cause all my data to be horked, and could cause the end of the universe. In fact, I recently had to completely reformat my hard drive and reinstall 10.2 clean after a 10.3 release screwed up just about everything on my machine. I didn't complain 1 second because I knew that was a possibility... I also had all my data backed up and it took me about 2 hours to get back situated to a completely good machine again.
MOST people in the open public would NOT act this way if Apple let out pre-release software. They would send nasty emails, they would complain that this or that doesn't function (i've heard people whine about how unstable iChat AV Beta is - BETA PEOPLE)
This is why Apple is conservative - because if they are not - their stuff would not "Just Work (tm)" and Mac users would get upset.
As for this hack - that is exactly what it is.. a hack. I waited nearly a week after the first time i heard about this - waited to see if anyone out there was having trouble with it - and so i took the pluge OF MY OWN RESPONSIBILITY. If i bork my laptop - well, i bork it. its my problem, not Apple's. I dont' go to Disneylnd hoping to slip on some water to make a million bucks - and i don't hold Apple responsible if i kill my computer because i wanted to burn DVDs at 2x.
If people could accept responsiblity in this lawyer-soaked country - then people could do more ans experience more in their lives... but we live in a place where a burglar can sue for getting shot while breaking into your home, where if you spill coffee on yourself because you are a klutzy moron - you can win $1M, and where OJ can walk free because if Chewbacca lives on Endor, that doesn't make sense.
Of COURSE Apple goes conservative - and they do it for many reasons. And when i need a machine that works well - for work - I use a Mac, and i don't dork with it.
When i'm having fun - i try things and see what happens - and take responsibility.
f you, you lawyer-bought liberals and your safety first must wear a fscking helmet bullshit. Its my life, not yours, you cockbites.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.