External DVD -/+ DL burner

My client wants this FCP project on a DVD+R and my G5 only does -R, so I need to get an external burner that also does DL in addition to DVD+R. Any brands recommended, or to stay away from? Thanks.
Sharon

macsales.com does not have the overhead of the
pricier Lacie products.
they also don't have the durable metal cases that Lacie has
or lightscribe
or TOAST (very powerful suite of burning software)
DAVE

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I bought the external DVD player/burner for my Macbook. I tried using it with my Dell laptop but it will not work. Is it not configured to work with anything but apple operating systems?

I bought the external DVD player/burner for my Macbook. I tried using it with my Dell laptop but it will not work. Is it not configured to work with anything but apple operating systems?

If you purchased the Apple USB SuperDrive, it will only work with select Apple devices. It won't work, for example, on my Late 2011 model that has a SuperDrive built-in, but it will work with an Air, Retina model, new 'drive-less' iMacs, etc.
As far as I know, though, you can only hack the drive to work with some other Apple devices, but not with Windows PCs. Which is a shame as other, less expensive DVD/CD devices will work with just about any machine.
Sorry,
Clinton

Question about choosing an external dvd/cd burner

The burning speed listed in my iTunes preferences goes up to 24x, then "Maximum Pssible". I am thinking of purchasing a LaCie DVD/CD burner that has write(48x)/rewrite(32x)/read(40x). When using with my iMac does this mean that I can burn at 48x with the iTunes burning preferences set to Maximum or does the maximum burning capabilities with my iMac top out at 24x?
Also, the internal burner device (a Matshita model) seems to have something called buffer protection. Can anyone explain what buffer protection is and is a mandatory consideration when using second, external player/burners?
Thanks for any help.

The 24X currently in iTunes is reflecting the speed that is capable of the internal burner in your iMac.
Also, the internal burner device (a Matshita model) seems to have something called buffer protection. Can anyone explain what buffer protection is and is a mandatory consideration when using second, external player/burners?
This is to ensure that your burner does not run out of data while it is burning. If the burner runs out of data, the burn will fail.

External dvd reader/burner doesn't show in Finder

Hi and thanks in advance for your help -
I've just purchased an external dvd burner because the pre-super drive dvd reader in my macbook is getting a little tires. It doesn't appear in the finder, but when I check with the System Profiler or Disk Utility application, it is listed there. It's a no-brand dvd burner (from the Fnac chain in France) which appears as a "Slimtype DVD A DS8A3S", am I missing something here?
Thanks

That was the next question I was going to ask.
If your external DVD player has its own power supply, you should definitely use it. If it came with 2 USB cables, it's in your best interest to use both of them with DVD player. One will be responsible for transferring data from the DVD player to the computer, along with supplying some power. The second cable will provide the rest of the power for the drive
~Lyssa

Compare DVD-R burn quality by internal Super Drive to External DVD-R burner

Has anyone compared the video 'quality' of a DVD-R burned using the internal Super Drive
on my MacBook Pro (Windows 8.1 64 bit) to the same DVD-R burned using a standalone
Sony DVD-R Recorder / player? One would think the quality would be slightly better using
a standard external DVD-R disc burner.

I see no difference in the video quality. Although I use a different external burner than your brand. It's possible some external burners are better than the optical drives on a MacBook Pro or vice versa.

External DVD player/burner region free?

Hi there,
This kind of question has been posted before but the latest thread is from 2006 so I just wanted some up to date information.
My optical drive has been through its 5 changes and has settled on region 2. I want to watch and back up a region 1 dvd. If I were to buy an external DVD player would my mac force it to read only region 2 or would it be region free?
If it is region free does anyone have any recommendations on a good external DVD drive?
Thanks very much.

As I understand it, it is ultimately the DVD drive's firmware that determines that drive's region setting, not the Mac itself (although it's the Mac that initially lets you change the region stored in that firmware, up to five times). When you first connect an external DVD drive, its region encoding will be whatever the manufacturer set it to be.
If you want true region-free playback, you'll have to find a DVD drive whose firmware can be updated to make the drive region free. This process always used to be much easier on a PC than a Mac; I don't know if that's still the case.

Lacie external DVD/CD burner

I bought an external burner to reduce the wear and tear on the internal optic drive and because the Lacie burner is twice as fast. The model I have comes with a 400 firewire port so I have it daisy chained to a bunch of external hard drives. When I first got the burner, it worked like a charm and I could knock off maybe 10 DVDs in a row before I would give it a rest. Now, almost every DVD is rejected during the verification process even after I let it rest for as long as 20 minutes (the length it takes the internal optic drive to burn a DVD). Has the burner died or am I daisy chaining it to too many hard drives?

I'm talking abouot the Intel computer - that's my primary computer. There are four externals daisy chained together and the burner is plugged in to one of them. Fortunately, I have a cable with a 400 firewire connection on one end (the burner has only 400 ports) and a 800 connection on the other end, so I can connect the burner directly to the computer. Thanks for the tip on burning 3 DVDs before letting it cool down. Will keep this in mind the next time I have to burn a whole bunch of DVDs. Will post back early next month since I don't have any projects right at the moment.
Message was edited by: Sunny's mommy

External DVD/CD burner?

I burn a lot of my home videos and I feel that i am putting a lot of stress on my burner and dont want to burn it out, no pun intended.

Depends on what you mean by "a lot". While your drive can only take so many consecutive burns (I'd stop at 5) the easy thing to do is to give it a bit of time to cool between them. Also, if you have ApleCare it's not something you should need to worry about for a while.
Otherwise, just go out and buy a cheap external drive which you can abuse to your heart's content.

External DVD/BluRay Burner recommendation

It's been awhile since I've had to do this kind of research, so I'm hoping that it's much simpler than I'm making it. These days, OS/hardware/software incompatibilities make me see red. Anyway...
The CD/DVD drive in my early 2008-era Intel iMac running OS 10.6.8 bit the dust awhile back and can not only NOT read disks, but always refuses to spit them out. In the cursory research I've done, it appears the laser reader is shot. Rather than pay to have a new one installed which would cost me substantially more, I'd prefer to just buy an external (yeah, like I need another USB/Firewire device connected to an already tach'd out hub) and if anyone has recommendations, I'd sure appreciate it hearing about it. I've heard good stuff about LGs, but I'm not necessarily tied to the best deal/cheapest...I just want something that has more longevity than what Apple put into the machine.
Thanks!!

Not all DVD player units for computers are Mac compatible.
LG has a few and can be found on Amazon.com
There are others found here.
http://www.amazon.com/LG-GP10NB20-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B004K2Z4MS/ref=sr_1 _3?ie=UTF8&qid=1398883289&sr=8-3&keywords=Mac+compatible+external+LG+optical+dr i ve
http://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronics-Portable-External-GP40NB40/dp/B009DS6OFU/re f=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1398883289&sr=8-7&keywords=Mac+compatible+external+LG+opti c al+drive
Here's another source for Mac compatible optical drives. These are better quality optical drives.
These are also tray loading drives.
Tray loading optical drives are more reliable, plus they are capable of playing those smaller mini sized discs.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/VLU2SD24XS/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MR3F82SD24S/
Also, Macs do not play Blu-Ray discs natively. If you have video discs that are in the Blu-Ray format, you will need to find a Mac compatible Blu-Ray /DVD player and a separate software Blu-Ray player application.
OWC ( http://eshop.macsales.com/ ) has Blu-Ray playing drives, also.
Found here.
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/external+blu+ray
Also, check Amazon.com
Good Luck.

External dvd drive/burner

I connected a pioneer 106 external drive via usb and it was not recognized. I believe I was told my computer does not have usb 2. Could this be, and if so I can I remedy this. I only have a cd drive internally.

Go to the apple menu ---> about this mac ----> More Information. Look under USB to see if your drive is actually detected. If it is, use Patchburn to enable it. Patchburn is a free program used to help Mac's detect unsupported burners.
If you do get it working, you could always dissassemble the case which takes about 5 minutes. After doing this you will see the IDE Ribbon and Power Connection. You now have an internal drive, swap it with the internal CD if you wish.
Good Luck

External DVD burner - USB or Firewire?

when I got my first OS X system - about six years ago - I bought a firewire DVD burner. it worked great for all this time and finally died a few months ago.
time to get a new one! But I am having a hard time finding an external firewire Drive - all I see is USB.
can someone recommend a good FW 1394 external DVD / CD burner drive somewhere
or...
can someone assure me that USB is now so terrific that I don't need firewire and will be very happy with a new state of the art USB 2.0 drive?
thanks!
willfriedwal;d

Be careful with Other World. They sell DVD burners in two different types of enclosures. The info at the top of the burner page says Oxford 911 chipsets, but the Mercury Value DVD burner they sell for $71.99 uses a different set - the Prolific 3507 set. Google that name and see how many angry people you find. I bought one after being told by a salesman that the only difference between the Mercury Value and the Mercury Pro was cosmetic. Wrong. The Value drive wouldn't mount a disk when plugged into the firewire port on my 20" G5 iMac. It did mount when plugged into the USB port, but my understanding is that you can't boot from a CD in a USB drive (not easily anyway), and you can in Firewire. My internal drive is dead in the water, and estimates I got to replace it were $250 or so, so I'm going external. Gonna buy the Mercury Value Pro with Oxford 911 now that I got my money back (no easy task either, but I finally got it.)
Just thought I'd pass that along.
brotone

Is it possible to install Tiger using an external DVD drive?

I have one the of the first iMacs and at the time I thought I didn't need a DVD Player. However, now I was thinking of buying an external DVD player/burner. Is it possible to upgrade to Tiger using the external DVD drive since I don't have an internal one?

Hi Celticart,
Welcome to the discussions.
I have an old AGP PowerMac G4 to which I have hooked an external Firewire DVD Drive. I have installed Tiger without any problems, using this drive. I see no reason why it couldn't be done on an iMac as well, (provided it has Firewire).
I don't think you could get it to work using an external drive hooked up via USB.
Cheers!
Karl

Boot Camp - External DVD Reader (Mac Compatible)

To all,
I am not able to get Boot Camp to load vista from the external CD-ROM since the internal one is totaly disconnected. It does nothing. It spins the CD when it restarts then continues on to loading the login screen.
Bare with me - this is the fun part -
I got a 24" white iMac. CD-ROM was stuck and refused to take in new CD's. Took it to Apple, they replaced it. I bring it back home 2 days later and the screen is dented. They fix that in 4 days. Now I am finally able to start installing Vista.
Put the CD in - nothing happens - it kicks it out!!!! Well - its brand new - its even a different brand than what was in there before.
I take it back to apple, i give the lady all the **** in the world because this is not supposed to happen, etc.
They decide to give me a new iMac. While I am waiting, the manager approaches me and give me the 13 cents which were found in the cd-rom drive (thanks to my kids)
So I appologize - totaly ignored her wanting $450 to replace it, so I went and bought a Sony external DVD reader, burner.
-- Problem --
Boot Camp, Front Row + the DVD player software won't work off the external drive.
I took the mac appart - disconnected the dvd-drive from the motherboard thinking that if its not there, then boot camp will attempt to run off the external drive.
Put it back together - and rebooted - everything came up fine until using front row or the dvd player.
Boot Camp still won't read the external drive - no errors nothing - it attempts then quits and moves to the login screen.
Guys - I need help - i make my living off Windows so not having access to it - its killing me.
Please do not recommend parallels or anything else like it.
I am willing to try anything at this point. Before I go and spend $450 i will rather buy a new machine.
HELP!!! Anyone Please!!!!

I doubt there is any way to get the external to work with the Windows install. It's magic that the internal works! However, since you are not afraid to rip the iMac apart, a Google of 'imac internal dvd drive' shows that you can get a replacement for well under $450.

Problem upgrading to 10.4 from 10.3.9 and a external DVD?

Hello,
To use my new ipod touch i have to intall Os 10.4 on my emac.
I have purchace the Tiger V10.4 DVD for the emac.
When i tried to install it the first time i found out my DVD reader/burner is broken ?.... ok no problem...i when out and spent 60$ to buy a external DVD player/burner.
But now... It wont install ?
I have tried to install it from the DVD using the C key on restard, switching startup disk in the preference systeme...and it just wont do it ?
I can install all the otter sofware included in the DVD's...but not OS X 10.4 ??
I have read somewere that its possible a installation wont work if we are not using a hardware made by Mac ? but i was not able to find a solution to this ?
I have tried to copy the disk on my computor HD and start it from there, but no success ? maybe im not doing it the rigth way ? i migth be forgetting someting ?
Any suggestions ?
Any idea on what could cause this problem ? (beside buying a PC of a new Mac)
Cheers!
Message was edited by: dobmaster

dobmaster:
yes... its a USB : /
You cannot boot a PowerPC Mac from a USB device. You need an external Firewire DVD drive.
If you have a another Mac that supports firewire available you can install using Firewire Target Disk Mode. Here's how:
• Boot the Mac with working optical drive in Firewire Target Disk Mode.
• Insert install disk into Target Computer's optical drive.
• Connect computers via firewire cable
• Option Boot computer to which you want to install.
• Select Install Disk for startup and click on the straight arrow.
• Proceed with Installation
Please post back with further questions or comments.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
cornelius

Unable to alternate internal DVD RW drive for external DVD driv

Hi,
Please call me Yogie.
I have a G4 computer issue.
I have a Mac computer (G4-500mhz dual) with a Pioneer super drive. It has failed, to the point where it won't read dvd's. I've purchased an external dvd-cd burner (lacie) and when I want to record photos from Idvd, the Pioneer super drive tray will open for dvd insertion, but doesn't recognize the dvd. I need to override the Pioneer superdrive, so I can use the Lacie dvd rw drive. How can I do that ?
Thanks

Hi Yogie:
Welcome to discussions!
How is that LaCie drive formatted? You must use HFS+ to store iMovie files, not FAT32(DOS) or Unix.
Connect the external drive and then launch Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities). You'll see your external drive in Disk Utility's side bar; select it and then click the Erase tab at the top. From the Volume Format menu select which type of formatting you want (most likely Mac OS Extended-Journaled) and then click the oval Erase button at the lower right.
Sue

External DVD -/+ DL burner

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