Upgrade Doubles +R Speed For Some Lite-On Drives

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.)

Comments

Don't bother if you don't own one already.

[garcia]

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.

Same Trick for Apple Powerbooks

[artlu]

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.

Lite-on isn't alone

[Jugalator]

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. ;-)