The intense competition on DVD burners market tremendously shortens product lifecycle. As proof of, Pioneer already starts to communicate about the 110 that will supersede the 109.
Here are the specifications (109 specifications in brakets):
Writing DVD+/-R at 16x (same)
Writing DVD+R9 at 8x (6x)
Writing DVD-R DL at 8x (6x)
Writing DVD-RW at 6x (same)
Writing DVD+RW at 8x (same)
Writing DVD-RAM at 5x (2x)
Writing CD-R at 40x (same)
Writing CD-RW at 32x (24x)
As you probably noticed, there is nothing really new. In any case, no need to postpone the acquisition of a 109 or migrate from 109 to 110, unless you're spending your days burning double-layer DVDs or DVD-RAM.
A
XLR8yourmac reader managed to flash a DVR 109 under Mac OS X by using Logitec's flasher.
He had to modify several things to achieve it.
He replaced the occurence OEM_EXT by GENERAL in the resources. He also modified the firmware name that is coded inside to offer the version 1.40.
To download his patch and firmware:
OSXDVR109Flasher140FW.zip
If you have a A09 or a DVR 109 patched as A09 on a PC, the application declines to do the update.
In that case, you should edit the package UpgOSX-LOGITEC-R9 which is in Content/MacOS, and replace GENERAL by PIO_ADV.
You should also replace R9149109.140 by R9143109.140.
You will find in the archive above the two firmware files and Kernel 1.40 for the A09:
A09.140.zip.
It will be of course necessary to put these two files in the same folder than the modified flasher.
We didn't patch ourselves these files because our 109 is already in the most recent firmware making impossible to do testing.
There is a 1.50 firmware for the 109/A09 but Pionner has removed it from download. Our tests showed burning problems at 12x and 16x speeds.
PomDAPI put online a video showing a step-by-step Mac mini disassembling. The video is heavy (50 Mb) but those who hesitate to launch out in disassembling will appreciate to see the operation in real time.
Article in french:
http://www.pomdapi.net
Direct link to the video
here
We were originally quite amazed, but it seems true that the main blockage for an agreement and the birth of an unified blue laser DVD format is ... 0.5 mm of protection layer!!
Indeed, for HD-DVD, this layer has 0.6mm thickness vs. 0.1mm for the Blu-Ray; and nobody wants to modify this thickness... for only couples of tenth of millimeters!!
One can imagine, that this is the perfect "technical" reason to hide more financial and undisclosable reasons.
It is possible to install a disk image preferences in system preferences.
To do it, locate the following folder:
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DiskImages.framework/ Versions/A/Resources and double-click on "DiskImage.prefPane"; it will then be installed.
One of
XLR8yourmac readers has modified his Geforce FX5200 to make it compatible with a G4 AGP. If the card is working fine, the modification is...definitive!
XLR8yourmac
