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Upgrade Your DVD Writer to Double Layer -- Maybe
Autoversicherung writes "Even if NEC tells you its impossible, German netzine Golem is reporting hackers have created an updated, unofficial version of the firmware providing DVD+DL (Double Layer) capabilities. Currently model 2100A and 2500A are patchable, more will hopefully follow soon.
How cool, this enables me to skip an update cycle for burners!!" It's always fun to use the fish, and sometimes to void your warranty.
Now lets get crackin on patches for sony's DRU-series!
between the babelfish translation of the article, and a few people's posts, that this is a case of "you get what you pay for." If NEC says you can't do it, maybe it's because you can't do it reliably; that seems to be the case here. I would question the feasibility of taking hardware designed for single-layer disks and using it for dual-layer burns, and indeed the article points out (in broken, babelfished English, but as best I can tell) that the resulting drives are flaky at best. My advice, though I support the development of open/third-party firmware in general, would be to skip this upgrade and go buy the real thing.
So if I have this strait this is a unsupported beta firmware hack to make a dvd drive write with unknown success to a dual layer media which isn't even available yet, will void your warrenty anyway and may kill your drive?
Cool! Sorry I'm a sucker for punkrock sollutions.
Don't mess with the bunny, outsideworld.org
Ok, I'll bite...
Ummm... regarding your non purchase of a portable MP3 player or car stereo, why don't you go to a place where they sell these products and take a few mp3s with you and try them out? Seems like an obvious solution to me...
Score: -1, Paranoid Troll
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
apparently most drives slow down on purpose when they detect a video DVD to discourage ripping
They could be doing this to keep the noise down when you watch a movie. Just a thought.
US$13 for 8.5Gig. CD-r discs are around US$0.50 each depending on quantity. Given that my Plexwriter Premium can almost fit 1Gig on a CD-r, DVD-DLs are roughly 3x the price per MB. Much as I enjoy being an early adopter (*cough*), I think I'll wait until the price per MB comes down to around US$1.
Yes. And aside from the pure technical issues, Hollywood simply does not want us to have a compatible double-layer video medium for obvious reasons... I'll believe it when I see it!
How shocking. Im surprised you have a p.c. at all. This is the most incredibly paranoid post I've ever seen, even by slashdot standards. Why wouldnt you be able to play your mp3s on a car mps player ? You can have complete control over them, and the player is designed to play mp3s.
The ipod works fine with 2000, thats what i'm doing, although I am running it on a machine that was designed this side of the cold war. For your flash mp3 keychain, just buy a conpactflash card, and one of the mp3 players that take them. Whatever you do, dont buy secure digital, you'll be looking over your shoulder for the RIAA the whole time.
As for DVD Ram, you unfortunately have no idea what you are talking about. It is no more random access that any of the other formats. Its loing the race because the discs it burns are expensive to manufacture, and incompatible with many readers. Educate yourself before depriving yourself of a DVD burner.
As for the cost of CDRs, educate yourself again. In the UK I pay about 25p / GB for CDR or DVD-R. For backup purposes I now hae to burn 1/5 the number of discs. 9 DVDs each month rather than 45 CDs. An as for holding of buying a DVD burner for a few months until they are a larger, you are mad.
Do you really think there will ever a an affordable backup solution that will put all your data on a single throwaway disc ? Your data, and that created by m$ grows at the same rate as backup storage.
No I agree that DRM is evil, but you really should lighten up a little. Sony are not going to turn the DRM on in their burners at a later date. How the hell could they. Will they bang my door down and hijack my pc ? Does my burner have a secret net connection ? Its just a dumb drive using a standard windows 2000 driver.
Wake up, youll enjoy life a lot more.
Watch out for the black helicopters though !
Uhh, weren't they going to buy new drives anyway? This gives them at least a 50-50 chance of saving money.
And void your warranty on a part headed for the shelf? Who cares.