From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

Hello,

A quick query ..

I have some DVD-ROMs that I burned on a WintelPC using the SONY DRU-510A mechanism. Some of the DVDs are DVD-RW, some are DVD+RW and some are
DVD+R. All of these DVDs are readable on the drive that burned them and a combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive on the computer that burned them. The drive is a relatively new Plextor PX-320A. They were burned using Veritas' RecordDX under Windows XP, Service Pack 1.

I tried to read these DVD-ROMs on two different Macs without success. One
was a 3 year old Blue & White G3 (Yosemite class machine) and the other a
450 MHz "Cube". I believe the firmware on both machines are up to date.

Question .. Is there anything I can, in terms of software, device drivers
or firmware upgrades that I am not familiar with to facillitate the reading
of these DVD-ROMs on these Macs? I fear that the drives are just not
capable of reading these newly burned DVDs.

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

Harvey J Cohen <hjNOSPAMcohen@sbcNOSPAMHEREglobal.net> writes:

I have some DVD-ROMs that I burned on a WintelPC using the SONY
DRU-510A mechanism. Some of the DVDs are DVD-RW, some are DVD+RW
and some are DVD+R. All of these DVDs are readable on the drive
that burned them and a combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive on the computer
that burned them. The drive is a relatively new Plextor PX-320A.
They were burned using Veritas' RecordDX under Windows XP, Service
Pack 1.

I tried to read these DVD-ROMs on two different Macs without
success. One was a 3 year old Blue & White G3 (Yosemite class
machine) and the other a 450 MHz "Cube". I believe the firmware on
both machines are up to date.

Are you sure that these all have DVD-ROM drives?

The B&W G3 shipped with three different drive options: CD-ROM,
DVD-ROM or DVD-RAM. Although DVD-RAM can read a factory-stamped
DVD-ROM disc, they can not read any recordable DVD media.

The Cube shipped with CD-RW or DVD-ROM.

Recordable DVD media isn't always compatible with DVD-ROM drives, just
like it isn't always compatible with video-DVD players. In general,
the "R" discs will be more compatible than "RW", and "-" will be more compatible than "+", but these are just generalizations.

Question .. Is there anything I can, in terms of software, device
drivers or firmware upgrades that I am not familiar with to
facillitate the reading of these DVD-ROMs on these Macs? I fear
that the drives are just not capable of reading these newly burned
DVDs.

Assuming the drive is physically capable of reading the media, then it
may become a file system issue. Standard DVDs (like video discs) use
a file system called UDF. I think Macs can also read and create DVDs
that are formatted with HFS or HFS+, but I'm not sure about that.

According to:
http://www.disctronics.co.uk/technology/dvdintro/dvd_filesys.htm
some DVD-ROM discs use a hybrid UDF/ISO-9660 file system in order to
be backward compatible with operating systems that don't support UDF
(like Win95). I don't know if MacOS supports this or not.

-- David
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