Registered: Apr 2002
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 142

SOAK: the Mac's "SuperDrive" & DVD-R

Why does the Mac only support DVD-R and not other formats: DVD+/-RW, DVD+R? Their SuperDrive is the only DVD burner I am aware of that only supports DVD-R. I suspect that the SuperDrive is capable of burning DVD-RWs too but they disable the feature. What are they thinking?

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Dallas (or L.A.)
Posts: 15821

Where is Raj when you need him?? He'll tell you DVD-R is the most compatible format out there.

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Posts: 3529

The SuperDrive is (typically) a Pioneer DVR-A04 or DVR-A05, which is a DVD-RW drive. As to whether they turn off the W feature, I don't know for certain - I've heard this, but I've also heard that they don't and that it was only disabled in an early driver version.

As for supporting +, most - drives can't use + and most + drives can't use -. Not terribly surprising. However, and I still can't confirm this either, I understand the new SuperDrive is actually the Sony dual-format drive, and that it can use + disks as well.

Oh - and DVD-R is the most compatible format of DVD recordable medium, when it comes to playing them back on other drives.

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Registered: Apr 2002
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 142

If the newest SuperDrives are Sonys then they are indeed disabling the DVD+/-RW and DVD+R burning features. I understand that they are probably trying to push the "-" standard on users, but you would think that the ability to burn DVD-RWs also would add value to the SuperDrive at no additional cost. I would like to know their reason for disabling it. What is the method behind this madness?

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Sarasota, FL
Posts: 2309

Search around on the ars technica Mac Forum and if that fails, post your question.

I don't remember exactly but there have been discussions of this very subject, including some hacks to enable both formats.

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Registered: Apr 2002
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 142

I found this too.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthr...?threadid=20287
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthr...?threadid=20571

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