I have a G4 tower, that currently only has a CD-RW drive in it. I just
got a new camcorder (Sony TRV33) and would like to start burning DVD's of
the videos I will be taking. Can I add an internal DVD drive, and still
keep my CD-RW drive? Any recommendations on brand?

I want to be able to use iDVD to burn DVD's from iMovie.

Thanks,
Gary

In article <pan.2003.06.25.20.35.31.516995.22911[at]berbee.com>, Gary
Kakazu <kakazu[at]berbee.com> wrote:

> I have a G4 tower, that currently only has a CD-RW drive in it. I just
> got a new camcorder (Sony TRV33) and would like to start burning DVD's of
> the videos I will be taking. Can I add an internal DVD drive, and still
> keep my CD-RW drive? Any recommendations on brand?

What generation of G4? And if you don't know the standard nicknames,
just describe the color of the front panel and the drive door(s).

Some models have two exposed 5.25" bays, others only one. If you have
only one, you could always move the CD-RW to an external FW case.

> I want to be able to use iDVD to burn DVD's from iMovie.

That may be tricky. Aside from the fact that iDVD demands an internal
DVD burner, ISTR it _also_ demands (minimally) a certain generation of
G4 (the chip) that has better performance than the one used in the
first few generations. So again it would depend on what model you've
got.

G

Greg,

Thanks for the reply. My G4 has 2 drive doors, and the front panel is a
light grey. I bought the system in Feb 2002, and it is a 733 Mhz G4.
Should that work with iDVD? Any recommendations on internal DVD drives
that I can use with iDVD?

Thanks
Gary

On Wed, 25 Jun 2003 20:07:13 -0500, Greg Weston wrote:

> In article <pan.2003.06.25.20.35.31.516995.22911[at]berbee.com>, Gary
> Kakazu <kakazu[at]berbee.com> wrote:
>
>> I have a G4 tower, that currently only has a CD-RW drive in it. I just
>> got a new camcorder (Sony TRV33) and would like to start burning DVD's
>> of the videos I will be taking. Can I add an internal DVD drive, and
>> still keep my CD-RW drive? Any recommendations on brand?
>
> What generation of G4? And if you don't know the standard nicknames,
> just describe the color of the front panel and the drive door(s).
>
> Some models have two exposed 5.25" bays, others only one. If you have
> only one, you could always move the CD-RW to an external FW case.
>
>> I want to be able to use iDVD to burn DVD's from iMovie.
>
> That may be tricky. Aside from the fact that iDVD demands an internal
> DVD burner, ISTR it _also_ demands (minimally) a certain generation of
> G4 (the chip) that has better performance than the one used in the first
> few generations. So again it would depend on what model you've got.
>
> G

On Wed, 25 Jun 2003 15:35:31 -0500, Gary Kakazu <kakazu[at]berbee.com>
wrote:

>I have a G4 tower, that currently only has a CD-RW drive in it. I just
>got a new camcorder (Sony TRV33) and would like to start burning DVD's of
>the videos I will be taking. Can I add an internal DVD drive, and still
>keep my CD-RW drive? Any recommendations on brand?
>
>I want to be able to use iDVD to burn DVD's from iMovie.

Buy a Pioneer A05 drive and you'll be all set. $166 at several
vendors; check www.dealmac.com and www.dealnews.com for more info.
I've got a G4/500x2 that's working great with exactly that in 10.2.6.

Just my $0.02 worth:

The latest Macworld (Aug. 2003) has an excellent article on updating an
older G4 tower with a "superdrive." Following the instructions in the
article, I purchased a Pioneer DVR-A05U and installed it with no problems in
my G4 AGP single door computer (retired to old DVD/CD reader that was
factory installed). No problems so far, but be aware OS X does not support
DVD-RW (per the article).

Good luck!

RFN
***

On 06/27/2003 8:58 PM, in article m2llvnklnt.fsf[at]qqqq.invalid, "David C."
<shamino[at]techie.com> wrote:

> Gary Kakazu <kakazu[at]fuggles.binc.net> writes:
>>
>> Thanks for the reply. My G4 has 2 drive doors, and the front panel
>> is a light grey. I bought the system in Feb 2002, and it is a 733
>> Mhz G4. Should that work with iDVD? Any recommendations on internal
>> DVD drives that I can use with iDVD?
>
> OK. I've got the same generation G4. This is the original
> "QuickSilver" case (the one without the mirrored drive doors.)
>
> Only one drive bay is 5.25" - the one that has your CD-RW in it. If
> you open the side door and look inside you'll see that the lower drive
> bay is smaller. The only drive Apple supports in there is a Zip
> drive, although I think you might be able to get bezels to support
> some other kinds of floppy-drive-size devices in that bay.
>
> The easiest thing is to get an external FireWire burner, but iDVD
> won't support that (even though other DVD creation programs will.)
>
> If you want to use iDVD, you must get a drive that iDVD is compatible
> with. My Feb-2002 QuickSilver G4 has a factory superdrive. It is a
> Pioneer DVR-104. Previous generations of Superdrive used the Pioneer
> DVR-103, and I think current models use the DVR-105. These are also
> sold with model numbers DVR-A03, DVR-A04 and DVR-A05. There are
> probably other iDVD-compatible brand/models of drive, but off the top
> of my head, I don't know what they are. You can probably find out by
> doing some web/newsgroup searches.
>
> If you get a compatible drive, you should be able to install it in the
> upper drive bay of your Mac (where the CD-RW is now). You'll probably
> have to remove the front bezel from the drive in order to get the tray
> to fit through the opening in the case, but that's not hard to remove.
>
> You can put your CD-RW drive into an external FireWire case if you
> want to keep on using it.
>
> -- David

On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 14:57:30 -0500, Robert Nelson
<rnelson[at]no_spam.camplex.com> wrote:

>Just my $0.02 worth:
>
>The latest Macworld (Aug. 2003) has an excellent article on updating an
>older G4 tower with a "superdrive." Following the instructions in the
>article, I purchased a Pioneer DVR-A05U and installed it with no problems in
>my G4 AGP single door computer (retired to old DVD/CD reader that was
>factory installed). No problems so far, but be aware OS X does not support
>DVD-RW (per the article).

You *can* do DVD-RW under OS X, but it's cumbersome and involves using
Disk Copy to erase the DVDRW before reusing it. Apple won't
explicitly support it, but it will work.


>On 06/27/2003 8:58 PM, in article m2llvnklnt.fsf[at]qqqq.invalid, "David C."
><shamino[at]techie.com> wrote:
>
>> Gary Kakazu <kakazu[at]fuggles.binc.net> writes:
>>>
>>> Thanks for the reply. My G4 has 2 drive doors, and the front panel
>>> is a light grey. I bought the system in Feb 2002, and it is a 733
>>> Mhz G4. Should that work with iDVD? Any recommendations on internal
>>> DVD drives that I can use with iDVD?
>>
>> OK. I've got the same generation G4. This is the original
>> "QuickSilver" case (the one without the mirrored drive doors.)
>>
>> Only one drive bay is 5.25" - the one that has your CD-RW in it. If
>> you open the side door and look inside you'll see that the lower drive
>> bay is smaller. The only drive Apple supports in there is a Zip
>> drive, although I think you might be able to get bezels to support
>> some other kinds of floppy-drive-size devices in that bay.
>>
>> The easiest thing is to get an external FireWire burner, but iDVD
>> won't support that (even though other DVD creation programs will.)
>>
>> If you want to use iDVD, you must get a drive that iDVD is compatible
>> with. My Feb-2002 QuickSilver G4 has a factory superdrive. It is a
>> Pioneer DVR-104. Previous generations of Superdrive used the Pioneer
>> DVR-103, and I think current models use the DVR-105. These are also
>> sold with model numbers DVR-A03, DVR-A04 and DVR-A05. There are
>> probably other iDVD-compatible brand/models of drive, but off the top
>> of my head, I don't know what they are. You can probably find out by
>> doing some web/newsgroup searches.
>>
>> If you get a compatible drive, you should be able to install it in the
>> upper drive bay of your Mac (where the CD-RW is now). You'll probably
>> have to remove the front bezel from the drive in order to get the tray
>> to fit through the opening in the case, but that's not hard to remove.
>>
>> You can put your CD-RW drive into an external FireWire case if you
>> want to keep on using it.
>>
>> -- David