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Upgrade Doubles +R Speed For Some Lite-On Drives

Posted by timothy on from the but-don't-blame-us dept.

Binsbergen writes "Owners of a Lite-On 451S (lowest price $ 69.50) and a Lite-On 851S can load the firmware of the Lite-On 832S and burn their DVD+Rs at 8x speed and also write to double-layer media. Before this seemed impossible, because many manufacturers have told us that upgrading a 4x drive to a double-layer writer was impossible due hardware differences. Of course it's important to note that 'overclocking' voids your warrantee and should be done after have carefully read the instructions. Read more about the procedure, the results and others experiences in the official 451S@832S, 851S@832S -- It works! thread. That's a dirt-cheap upgrade!" (Sounds similar to the NEC upgrade mentioned in May.)

13 of 195 comments (clear)

  1. Don't bother if you don't own one already. by garcia · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you don't currently own a 451S don't bother with purchasing one. The mad rush that this is going to cause will only raise the cost and the wait time for this specific unit. After a quick search I found the Lite-On 8x DVD+/-RW drive that does double layered writing for $89 (see here at newegg - BTW, I just did a quick search for Lite-On, I don't work for newegg or even recommend them).

    Seems to me that paying $20 more (without even checking anywhere else) to purchase a drive that is meant to write at 8x (apparently in both + and -) and won't void your warranty is a much better deal.

    1. Re:Don't bother if you don't own one already. by zakezuke · · Score: 4, Informative

      Seems to me that paying $20 more (without even checking anywhere else) to purchase a drive that is meant to write at 8x (apparently in both + and -) and won't void your warranty is a much better deal.

      Unless you plan to void your warrenty from the get go. I'd have to double check the number of things you can mod the liteon drive to do, but from memory you can have faster ripping speeds, multi region ability, booktype editing (i.e. this dvd-r gets labeled as a dvd-rom), and generally a vast number of useful things. Also from my understanding. In short, if you are going to screw with it anyway, might as well save the $20.00 assuming all things are equal.

      But that's the thing... I haven't bothered to mod my drives because i'm happy with them at present, and I wouldn't bother modding my drives until such time the cost of the DL media drops to single digit numbers.

      --
      There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
    2. Re:Don't bother if you don't own one already. by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Informative

      More to the point: You can get the 12x lite-on at newegg right now for $90.99, or a NEC drive with dual layer support, 8x, for $79.99. The latter is supposed to be super good at burning to cheap media and also be very quiet.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. Where Can I find Dual Layer Media Awyways? by jameskojiro · · Score: 4, Informative

    This patch is fine and dandy, but I cannot find any dual layered discs anywhere!

    --
    Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
    1. Re:Where Can I find Dual Layer Media Awyways? by mythosaz · · Score: 3, Informative
      Meritline, SuperMediaStore, and even Best Buy have the Verbatim Dual Layer "Solution" pack for about $25. It gets you ONE dual-layer disc, 8 single-layer 4x burnables, and one DVD-RW. Considering the cost of the other pieces is about $5-$7, it's at least $18 for a single piece of dual-layer media right now.

      SuperMediaStore and Meritline represent pretty much the cheapest places to safely buy large quantites of high-quality media (read: Ridata, et cetera).

      So, if you've got something important to burn, and it's 8.5G in size, it better be $20 important, you'd better not accidentally make a coster, and don't forget to pay your VAT if you're in one of those countries.

      Also, the dual-layered NEC2510A runs about $79 (or cheaper!) at NewEgg.

  3. Same Trick for Apple Powerbooks by artlu · · Score: 5, Informative

    The TiG4 Powerbooks had the same type of firmware 'fix'. I can't find the link to the upgradable firmware, but it doubled the speed of the MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-815A. Definitely was a major improvement over the standard 1x DVD burning that came with my powerbook.

    GroupShares Inc.

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    -------
    artlu.net
    1. Re:Same Trick for Apple Powerbooks by justMichael · · Score: 4, Informative

      It is here I did it months ago and have seen zero problems.

  4. This has been around for a long time. by fallenangel99 · · Score: 4, Informative

    The "hack" was released around December/January I believe. Kinda late there /. Anyway, Lite-On has some excellent burners. I got mine during Black Friday and let me tell you, the 4x burns at 8x =)

  5. Upgrade older 401S/411S to 8X too! by izx · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://forums.speedlabs.org/ (membership required) has a series of mods/steps to let your 401S/411S write DVD+Rs (and -Rs when they arrive) at 8X, effectively converting them to a 8xxS drive. Drives thus converted can later be flashed with original 8xxS firmware. (401s must first be "overclocked" to 411s and from then to 8xx).

  6. Re:OK OK OK NOW HERE'S THE SERIOUS QUESTION by hawkbug · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can burn xbox games with single layer discs, and have been able to for 2 years now. The tough part is that the xbox data is burned backwards... from the outside of the disc in from what I understand. This means that no, you can't put an xbox game in your computer and just "burn" it. You have to read it with your xbox while having the xbox modded and running linux, and then copy the data over the network to your computer via ftp - and then burn the thing using Nero or whatever. Then, you have a copy that will load on the xbox. Having a dual layer burner has nothing to do with it.

  7. Lite-on isn't alone by Jugalator · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's tons of other burners that can do dual layer with unofficial firmware upgrades.

    Even my el cheapo drive (Pioneer DVR-A06) might be able to do the trick, although I doubt Pioneer will release their hacked firmware for it just for the heck of it. ;-)

    I once knew the link to pages summarizing the recorders where dual layer firmware was available but have lost it since then. :-( Maybe someone else can provide one?

    Anyway, if your recorder supports recording 8x discs, chances are that it has a modified firmware for dual layer recording floating around somewhere, as one of the requirements -- a 140 mW laser -- is a common requirement for 8x DVD+/-R burning and DL burning. Philips has confirmed this, but says that in some cases the Optical Pickup Unit is still not of high enough quality. Obviously not always, since DL burning with modified firmware has been done by people upgrading their drives like this.

    Finally, it's still a risky business and you might bust your DVD-ROM drive by upgrading to a hacked firmware. And I doubt warranty applies. ;-)

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  8. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  9. it works by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just flashed my LDW-851S. Everything is ok so far... yay :)