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  • Reading DVD-ROMs burned elsewhere ..

    From Harvey J Cohen@hjNOSPAMcohen@sbcNOSPAMHEREglobal.net to comp.sys.mac.system on Friday, July 25, 2003 16:01:24
    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.

    --- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113
  • From shamino@shamino@techie.com (David C.) to comp.sys.mac.system on Saturday, July 26, 2003 01:21:45
    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
    --- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113