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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.
After the Sony units are looked at, how about the Plextors?
Erm, some point of clarification...the site that techbargains links is an English-language site that actually tested this firmware update and posted the results from several CD info tools as well as the results of a burn. There appear to be no problems going 2500->2510 although they say they did not test 2100->2510.
Also, on the second link I posted, the NEC 2500 bioses are region unlocked and rip unlocked (apparently most drives slow down on purpose when they detect a video DVD to discourage ripping, these unlocked firmwares will rip at full speed...go figure).
Scroll down to the bottom to find the NEC 2150 firmware to upgrade the 2500...the one labeled "K0P2 Binaries and Flasher".
-JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
How about someone hax0r the lite-on dvd rw drives? Being as they are so cheap these days, it would make for an even better deal.
You're nothing; like me.
Now that this news is now on /. (and due to the basic economics principle of supply and demand), this new burner's price is going to skyrocket, or NEC is going to go to a measure that's sure to *cough*happen*cough* piss people off, discontinuation.
-Xeon
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. -- Larry Wall
This reminds me of some sort of virus many years ago that claimed to turn a CD ROM drive into a CDR drive.
With this at least it is already a writer.
But I wouldn't rush to be the first to try it out.
Wait a few days and when people start posting "Oh fsck!" messages you'll know not to try it.
But then I still don't have a DVD burner so it is a moot point in this case.
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.
Just an uninformed opinion from someone too lazy to RTFA, but I wonder if this is anything like Intel underclocking chips to keep the supply of fast chips low. You know, NEC maybe ships a bunch of dual layer capible drives as single layer drivers to keep the market price up? I plan on getting either a Pioneer or Sony branded drive anyways (yeah, I know they all come from more or less the same few shops, but I've just had less trouble with either of those two brands in the past). Still, if this is what's going on, I like to see companies get bit in the rear for this sort of thing.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
This was a brilliant troll. I take my hat off to you. You even managed to get modded up for it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
It can't have escaped your notice that digital cameras and MP3 players have been moving away from Smartmedia and the older flash memory formats onto xD, SD and Memory Stick. Hmm, a new format that includes encryption and DRM. Why would I want my holiday snapshots encrypted and protected by DRM? I don't take those kind of holidays...
Now, where's my tinfoil...
While i love rpc1.org (been using their custom firmware for my nec-1300A with good results), this sounds more like a mostly untested, evil kludge of a hack. They _might_ be able to stabilize it, but i for one don't welcome our new faster-dvd burning overlords. The last thing you want is a fast deteriorating 2nd layer that dvd players will choke on, and data will become corrupt faster than you can say "Wow, these blanks were expensive". And all for what, the convenience of not having to swap out your pirated copy of lotr halfway through the big smoochy scene between aragorn & that elf chick. I'll keep using my old, boring as fuck single layer burner for now.
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
Even with a decent-sized buffer (by consumer player standards), the DVD itself has to be mastered in such a way as to facilitate a quick layer change. For example, using opposite-track rather than parallel-track encoding, and switching to a lower bit rate just before the layer change so the read-ahead buffer can have a chance to be filled with more post-layer change frames.
On PC DVD players, this is less of an issue because the drives are fast enough (and RAM plentiful enough) that you can afford to read far enough ahead that you eliminate any chance of layer change glitch, but there are few consumer players with drive speed and buffers that rival what even a low-end PC can accomplish.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
ermm... I have had an mp3 player in my car for two and a half years now (a $300 Kenwood if you must know [now $200]) and the only problem I have had with it so far is that it won't play copy protected CDs, as these have a data track on them which throws the player.
The way around that, of course, is to rip them to mp3 and burn them back to an ISO formatted disk, along with another 13 hours, or so, of music
I've never shoed a horse, but I once told a donkey to piss off!
Babelfish translates: There it the 2500A-Modelle already for under 100, - euro gives, would be this a very inexpensive, but not revaluation of the DVD burners mentioned which can be enjoyed without caution., which for one, is extremely hilarious and secondly conveys the exact opposite of what the German author wanted to say. The correct translation of the last half-sentence "which can be enjoyed without caution" would be "which should not be enjoyed without caution", to keep in fish style. No idea where the fish lost the extra negation.
The Apple Powerbook G4 I have (12 inch) comes with a single speed DVD burner - one firmware hack later, and I've got a 2 x writer. Companies suck when they cripple perfectly capable hardware for marketing reasons, but then I do have a DVD burner, LinkSys WAP, Xbox, TiVo, SonyEricsson phone and car(!) that cost me much less than what they would of cost if they did what they do now, when sold. If that makes any sense. In essence; marketdroids bad, hackers good.
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
...you're also looking at discs that simply aren't around in even small quantities yet. I heard they expected there to be a ~50$ premium on the latest ATI cards above the suggested retail price the first couple weeks. Supply and demand, baby.
Personally, I burn single-layer DVDs. Cost/MB is about the same as CDs, but I get a fraction of the disks to burn, label and keep track of. That's worth it to me. Personally, I wish removable SATA disks (like a huge floppy) would take off...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Don't buy a DVD burner now. Wait. Or you'll be kicking yourself.
Bought myself an 8x DVD burner about 6 months ago. Have had no problems copying DVD movies or data. I shall not kick myself.
One of the older PC brnads that's no longer around (I think it was Tandy) sold a series of computers with 256k or 512k of memory. The 256k machiens actually had 512k, but a lead or jumper on the board had been cut to make only half available. By opening the case and remaking the connection, you'd void your warranty but save several hundred dollars.
It's been rumored that currently all Asus-built ATI 9800 cards use the 9800XT chip and memory capable of supporting it. The rumor says it's just a firmware flash for any of these cards to be an XT. I'm not sure of this rumor, but it seems plausible.
That's about right - I work for a rival DVD+RW manufacturer, and we did a DL firmware upgrade project that got scotched specifically because the OPUs that NEC used were not able to work reliably with the DL firmware. While all of our drives were good, only about 50% of NEC's worked perfectly with the upgrade.
Caveat flasher, as it were!
I have a dual-layer burner and have been unable to find any DVD+R DL media. Kinda moots the whole point of the drive...
Anyone have a link to dual-layer blank DVD media?
I have a "Zero Policy" tolerance.
*/
Right now, we're in a window of transition towards finding a dominant medium for backing up computer hard disks. Most likely, the winner will fairly soon be: not DVD, not tape, but simply other hard disks. Right now, the minimum "nice" size for a backup device is 40GB, and by the time a recordable dye-based disc can reach that, the bar will have been raised to 80GB.
Cost is getting close to being eliminated as a factor in using hard disk as a backup media. The remaining hurdle is really a generic protective package (e.g., a little shock protection and don't expose any electronics) and the ability to walk up and plug it into any PC.
IoMega has issued their hard-disk backup medium solution, but it's slightly pricey, and strongly proprietary. Perhaps someone will start wrapping small form-factor disks in plastic with a connector that can plug into (and be powered by) either USB 2.0 or FireWire.
Within a few years, only the most low-end and casual forms of computer backup will be on DVD instead of hard disk.
I remember when I saw a similar article a few years ago, and people were pointing to a site where to upgrade my MP7040 to 7060 (4x to 6x). The flashing worked, the firmware and everything was recognized perfectly, wrote one cd, then after that nothing worked correctly, in the end, I was left with a cheezy CDROM instead of CD-RW.
Of course, maybe the drive was already on the edge of giving up and I just gave it the tap it needed to pass out, but then again, I am not going to blame anyone but myself for doing this because I knew what I was getting into.
Yes some drives have "features cutted back" but remember also that sometimes (might be or not be applicable in this case) if they are selling a drive as a "4x" and it's the same layout as an "8x", maybe there's not only capitalism in the equation, remember intel with their processor validation, etc.. it's not because we've got our 300A celeron to 450 and our dual 366MHZ BP6 motherboard to dual 550 Celerons that we'll always be that lucky.
So if anyone out there has doubts, I'd seriously suggest against going for it until you see sufficient number of people reporting that it works, because if you were doing this to prevent an upgrade cycle, you might actually force yourself into being an early adopter and that is a double loss.
Just my 0.02$
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.