News for Sunday, 19 March 2006

Following requests from our readers, we have decided to check if the Pioneer DVR-111D was compatible with our Macs.
Let's start with the specs of this drive: the DVR111D is a DVR-110D with a faster DVD-RAM reading speed (from 2x to 5x) and it can not burn DVD-RAM.
Pioneer has also modified the case, including the Disc-Resonance Stabilizer technology aiming to better control the air flow generated by disc rotation. It is also supposed to be more silent.

The DVR-111D is as short as the DVR-110D making its installation in a PMG5 easier and less disturbing for the overall cooling system of the machine.
The burner is immediately recognized by the system, even though it is not supported ("non géré").
Warning: do not forget to remove the front part of the drive before installing it. Important point since this burner can be installed in most Macs, in all Powermac, eMac and iMac G4.
The burner came with firmware version 1.02, whereas a newer version is available from the Pioneer website. We also found a region-free firmware on theDangerous Brothers website. Even better, according to specialized forums, the DVR-110D can be "flashed" into a DVR111, and then support DVD-RAM burning feature. However, there is no flashing application compatible for the Mac yet. We installed the drive into an Oxford 922 bridge-based USB2 external enclosure in order to modify the firmware. Once the Pioneer 111D was mounted and recognized by Virtual PC, we flashed the drive using the Dangerous Brothers
PIONEER DVR-111 region-free firmware version 1.06. This transformed the drive into a DVR-111. Once installed back in a Mac, MacOSX acknowledges the DVD-RAM write feature on this flashed drive.

When you insert a DVD-RAM media in this drive, you are proposed to format the drive via the HD tools, transforming the DVD-RAM into a removable HD with 4.12GB storage capacity, in this case reading the drive at 5x with the DVR-111 vs. 2x for the DVR110 makes a difference.
In summary, if you have already a DVR-110, changing your drive to a DVR-111 model does not really make sense. But if you have an older drive, it could be interesting to upgrade your drive to a DVR-111 ,since it is probably the last DVD burner released by Pioneer before the first blue laser-based models appear (the price of such drives will for sure be much higher).
and thanks to Michael for comments

For some weeks now, MacBidouille's forums have been flooded with reports of Bluetooth shutting down for no known reason on OSX Tiger (at leat since 10.4.3 update). As my computer became affected by the same problem, I tried but failed to find a way out of it.
On different models (Powerbook - 12" 1.33 GHz in my case, 15" 1 GHz in another, from a Powermac to an iMac G5), the Blutooth icon disappears from the menu bar, but also from the System Preferences, as if it had bever been there! System Informations simply states: "Bluetooth: not available". Even more puzzling, this epidemy affects external modules (USB) as well as the internal ones.
We are now collecting information about that mysterious phenomenon which - it seems - so far got no answers in Apple forums, and might not even be officially acknowledged by Cuppertino. Beyond getting a technical diagnosis, what we need is a simple way to restore Bluetooth functionalities without going through a Windows-style reinstall of the system...