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TICKET ARCHIVE -> DVD Burning with ibook g4 superdrive

thedon0922 - Dec 12, 2005 - 11:00 pm

I have a superdrive in a year old, 512 ram. I had burned DVDs fine for a long time, and then the burner broke and i had it replaced. Everything was fine for a while then recently i have been getting a coaster from 5 out of 7 DVD+R's that i burn. I have heard that DVD+R is not supports, but they read fine on my mac and i have burned 100's of them perfectly fine with Toast 6.0. Now, 3 will be fine and then 10 will be coasters. Any help would be apprecaited

Thanks

LovesMacs - Dec 13, 2005 - 12:36 am

Season's Greetings!

My name is Carolyn and I will try to assist you.

Ok.. you have an iBookG4 with Superdrive with 512 of RAM.

You indicated you had the DVD hardware replaced. Was this replaced at an Apple retailer? Or is this generic hardware? Tell me which DVD drive manufacturer so I can look it up and check it out for you. One easy way to find that information is to look in your System Profiler. Click the Apple logo top left of your Desktop, click About This Mac, then click
More Info. The System Profiler will open for you... in the list under Hardware select ATA... the ATA Device Tree will indicate exactly what kind of DVD hardware is there now.

You are using Toast to burn DVD's with. Since you have the SuperDrive do you by any chance have iLife? The iDVD software that comes with iLife is outstanding to burn to. I've used it... over and over without fail. Also, which media are you burning to? I've had problems myself with certain types like Sony... so I asked at the Apple store and they told me to use the ones Apple makes (of course), but I have to admit, I've never had one problem with them and any computer can read them.

YOu might try running Disk Utility to Repair Permissions also. Launch Disk Utility, it's in your Applications folder. When the window opens, select MacintoshHD in the left panel, then click Repair Permissions. Takes about a minute. This can fix a myriad of bugs on a Mac. Quit Disk Utility. Reboot......

Try deleting Toast preference file also. It should be:
com.toast.roxio.plist and you can find that here:
Macintosh HD>Users>Library>Preferences. Open the Preference folder and locate that file. Drag it to the Trash, then empty the Trash. Sometimes preference files can become corrupted.. this is a quick fix. And don't worry, your Mac will create a new .plist file for you.

What exactly is happening to the coasters? No data being burned to them at all???

Regards,
Carolyn

thedon0922 - Dec 13, 2005 - 6:59 am

Thank you Carolyn for responding so quickly.


The burner i had replaced in the iBook was from mac tech support, and its a Matshita DVD-R VJ-825.

I do have iDVD, but i really have never attempted to use it. The media that I have been using where i am getting these coasters is 8x Fujifilm DVD+R. I try not to use generic brands. Previously i used TDK DVD+R 8x. I know the burner is only 4x, so i burn at that speed.

I did the Disc Utility repair permissions and will also try deleting the toast preferences.

And as far as the coasters are concerned. Sometimes it will never get past the 'starting YOU DISC' and sometimes it will burn the first minute or two and then have an error. Other times it will get further, close to finishing and have the error. I get this with both video dvds and data DVDs.

I also just deleted the preferences file from toast.

I think that it may be the media i am using, but i just dont understand why 3 would work fine and then they stop working

Thanks so much

Evan

LovesMacs - Dec 13, 2005 - 8:42 pm

HI Evan,

What format data are you burning? Music/Photos/Data ???? FYI... iDVD will only work on the internal superdrive but since you replaced yours with a Matshita DVd-R, that's no problem! I have a Matshita in my PBook just a slightly different model number. If you are just burning music... burn from a Finder window to CD's. If it's images and or video, edit in iMovie then Export to iDVD. I'm a total newbie at this stuff and managed to put together a fairly professional DVD from my last vacation. Surprised myself LOL....

Try a different media... I have good luck with TDK for CD's and Apple for DVD's.

Evan.. also, whichever software (Toast) or (iDVD) you use to burn with... make sure you check the Preferences in that software to make sure you have the burn speed set correctly. Just launch the application, then click iDvd>Preferences. A pane will open and you can adjust your burn prefs anyway you wish.

Carolyn :-)

thedon0922 - Dec 13, 2005 - 8:57 pm

Thanks. Here is the issue also with using iDVD and iMovie. I am not using movie files. they are Music DVDs that i download that have to be burned as a Data DVD. I think that the issue may be with the DVDs. Do you use DVD-R or DVD+R discs to burn

LovesMacs - Dec 15, 2005 - 10:50 pm

Hello :-)

I use DVD-R. That's what every single Apple expert has told me and I ask people individually to see if I get the same answer at least three times. Me of little faith LOL... as for movie files.. yeah, iMovie has the QuickTime plugin and can only read .mov formats. (I think) ...
As for burning anything downloaded from the net, maybe it's a protected copyright problem? I'm not sure about that. What format are the music files mpg3? aac? ... iTunes might be able to do this. If you can download a music file and drag and drop into the iTunes Library... if it can read it, you'll be able to play it. Now, if it's burnable, meaning no copyright protection, the Burn icon will appear top right of the iTunes window... maybe that will work ??????

Carolyn

thedon0922 - Dec 15, 2005 - 10:56 pm

these aren't copywrited. The weird thing is that I had burned 100s of these concerts to DVD+R, then my burner died and i got a new one and since then have had nothing but problems but they wont give me a new one because it will burn CDs fine.

I am tempted to get a new external DVD+R burner to alleviate this annoyance of having 30 useless DVD coasters.

The audio is imbedded into the files. they are .vob, .bup and .ifo. They are already created menus and chapters. It just has to be burned. I have done some research and found that a DVD-R burner and DVD-R dvds have a different region code and that you have to burn them as a DVD-ROM to trick it. I ordered some DVD-R's and i will see what happens. I just hope they play in my DVD player

LovesMacs - Dec 15, 2005 - 11:18 pm

Howdy,

Wow... you mean to tell me you replaced the superdrive with a superdrive that is supposed to burn DVD's as well as CD's and they won't replace it? Oh... I'd scream... really really loud. BEFORE you spend $$$ on an external burner... complain your head off.

Ok.. audio is imbedded... I've never even heard of .vob .bup or .ifo sorry! I'm forever trying to learn this stuff.

So far I've had good luck with the DVD's I've burned being read by my DVD player attached to my TV. So far...

Well, if they won't replace it I guess your only option is external... I hope you don't have to do that.

Carolyn :-)