Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: Mercury On-The-Go FW800+USB2 up to 1.0TB. Bus Powered, no external power supply needed. Macworld ‘Editor’s Choice’, CNET ‘Very Good’ Starting from $99.97, 500GB $159.99. Click here

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Mac Musings

Burning CDs, Watching DVDs

Dan Knight - 2001.01.24 - Tip Jar

Watching the keynote at Macworld San Francisco, I would have sworn that Steve Jobs said the big difference between the other Power Mac G4 models and the 733 MHz one was that all the drives supported CD, CD-R, CD-RW, and DVD - but only the G4/733 SuperDrive also supported DVD-R.

I was wrong. That was disappointing. What's even more disappointing is that Apple has no CD-RW/DVD options, even though such drives have been available for months and are regularly covered on Accelerate Your Mac.

Accelerate Your Mac is one of my favorite sites. They're always on the cutting edge with things like CD-RW/DVD drives, EIDE cards for PCI slots, and the latest video cards. Their database has 51 user reports on "combo DVD/CDR" drives. Here's a quick summary:

  • Que! Combo FireWire CD-RW/DVD
  • Toshiba SD-R1002 IDE CD-RW/DVD
  • Toshiba SD-R1002 FireWire CD-RW/DVD (IDE drive in FireWire case)
  • Ricoh MP9120A-DP IDE CD-RW/DVD (not bootable)
  • Ricoh MP9060A IDE CD-RW/DVD

The vast majority of reports, maybe 85%, are for the Toshiba drive. It boots the Mac. It burns CD-R and CD-RW. It plays DVDs. And it's reasonably fast: 4x writes, 4x CD-RW, 24x read, and 4.8x DVD.

The first review on Accelerate Your Mac was posted in May 2000, but vnunet.com had a product preview in February - almost a whole year ago. Yet much of the Mac community seems unaware of this useful hybrid.

That's too bad, because I'm convinced a lot of Power Mac G4 buyers would love to get their new computers from the factory with a combination CD-RW/DVD drive instead of the more pedestrian CD-RW drive or far more costly SuperDrive.

The Que! Combo comes in 4x4x24x4x, 6x4x24x4x, and 12x10x32x8 versions, giving the buyer with a FireWire port a range of speeds and price points. The Toshiba mechanism can replace the CD or DVD-ROM drive in any Power Mac or clone that supports EIDE drives.

I don't know what CD-RW drive Apple uses in the G4s, nor do I know how much the Pioneer SuperDrive mechanism adds to the cost of a G4 (The Apple Store doesn't say), but I'm guessing a good number of new buyers would be willing to ante up an additional $100 or so for a CD-RW/DVD drive inside their new computer. I think Apple is missing an income opportunity here.

The same goes for the external FireWire CD-RW/DVD drive, although the Que! drive has a very attractive price (see deals below). But I'm betting Apple could sell an Apple branded FireWire CD-RW/DVD very successfully, considering the number of FireWire iBooks, PowerBooks, iMacs, and Power Macs out there - or maybe they should simply consider selling the Que! drive.

Apple spoiled us by adopting DVD early; now they seem have almost abandoned it. If Steve Jobs thinks Apple missed the boat by going DVD instead of CD-RW, I think they're missing the boat by not offering something between CD-RW and the SuperDrive.

iVCD

While we're at it, I'd love to see Apple come out with a version of iDVD that's designed for video CD mastering (VCD). Sure, the quality isn't the same as DVD, but for those with less capable machines than the G4/733 who only have CD burners, it would be a great way to make portable movies you could watch on a Mac, PC, or DVD player. LEM

Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986, sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Recent Mac Musings

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.