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.

Comments

Re:This was on techbargains.com

[JoeShmoe]

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
.

How about a lite-on..

[LilGuy]

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.

Oh Great...

[xeon4life]

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

Re:This is your DRIVE on BAD Firmware

[Anarcho-Goth]

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.

The great burner death of may 2004

[Willeh]

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.

Re:DVD-ROM

[The Clockwork Troll]

You have a cheap DVD-player with a tiny buffer apparently.

The DVD player is only part of it.

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.