In searching for a DVD multi-format drive with which to burn
my imovie files to disc I ran across a Formac site with information
on their Devideon Superdrive. I would appreciate any info I could
get concerning the reliable operation and compatibility of this
drive with my iMac G-3 DV Spec. Ed. 128mb Sdram 13.6gig HD. OS9.0.
I am using the originaliMovie application I received with the computer.

TIA

L. May
--
please delete "omit" from address to reply

"Leo May" <idylone[at]earthlinkomit.net> wrote in message
news:SOEib.1026$kx.451[at]newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>
> In searching for a DVD multi-format drive with which to burn
> my imovie files to disc I ran across a Formac site with information
> on their Devideon Superdrive. I would appreciate any info I could
> get concerning the reliable operation and compatibility of this
> drive with my iMac G-3 DV Spec. Ed. 128mb Sdram 13.6gig HD. OS9.0.
> I am using the originaliMovie application I received with the computer.

I recently sold my Devideon after buying a G4 Tower with an internal
Superdrive. However, I have nothing but high praise for the Devideon setup
(hardware + software). It uses the same Pioneer 4x DVD-R/RW mechanism
found in Apple's G4 Towers - and also supports CD-R/RW. As a Firewire drive
it is supported in OSX and will work with discburner and iTunes, but not
iDVD. The included Devideon DVD creation software has excellent encoding
quality - as good as iDVD and better than CaptyDVD IMHO. It also has some
advantages over iDVD - like support for 6 hour DVDs (compared to 1.5hour),
support for SuperVCDs, and a screensaver video encoder.

That last feature (screensaver) is what I miss most of all. This is because
the video encoding process is the most time consuming part of creating a
DVD. It can take several hours even with a fast G4. But with the Devideon
screensaver installed you can automatically encode your DVD project at any
time while still having have full use of your cpu when you need it. For
example, you may not have Devideon running because you want to run another
cpu intensive app. But if you walk away from your computer long enough for
the screensaver to kick in, it automatically starts Devideon AND starts
encoding your current DVD project exactly where you left off! You can stop
it at any point if you want full use of your computer again. And the next
time the screensaver kicks in it starts where it left off the last time. So
no time is wasted and the results are excellent. If you want to test it out
1st, Formac use to allow anyone to download their Devideon software to try
it out. They may still but I haven't checked recently. Without the Devideon
DVD burner attached the software defaults to a 10 minute trial mode. IIRC,
that's 10 minutes of DVD video which obviously takes longer than 10 minutes
to encode. So you have plenty of time to test out the features and see the
finished video quality.

FWIW the guy I sold my Devideon to is a friend has a 600Mhz iMac DV SE and
it works great with the Devideon. The only difference is that since his
iMac came with an internal CD-RW drive instead of DVD, it didn't have the
Apple DVD Player installed. So we had to install it manually. The Apple
DVD Player normally doesn't support Firewire drives. So we also downloaded
a patch that allows it to work with Firewire. You can also use VLC (Video
LAN Client) which supports playing video DVDs from Firewire drives.
regards.........joe

"nospam" <nospam[at]fakeisp.com> wrote in message news:<1066138522.516806[at]cache2>...
> "Leo May" <idylone[at]earthlinkomit.net> wrote in message
> news:SOEib.1026$kx.451[at]newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> >
>
> I recently sold my Devideon after buying a G4 Tower with an internal
> Superdrive. However, I have nothing but high praise for the Devideon setup
> (hardware + software). It uses the same Pioneer 4x DVD-R/RW mechanism
> found in Apple's G4 Towers - and also supports CD-R/RW. As a Firewire drive
> it is supported in OSX and will work with discburner and iTunes, but not
> iDVD. The included Devideon DVD creation software has excellent encoding
> quality - as good as iDVD and better than CaptyDVD IMHO. It also has some
> advantages over iDVD - like support for 6 hour DVDs (compared to 1.5hour),
> support for SuperVCDs, and a screensaver video encoder.
>

This is very interesting. I am purchasing a firewire enclosure for am
IDE DVD-R/RW+R/RW drive. I am planning to use it to backup my hard
disk. I was hoping that I would not have to purchase Toast or
Retrospect in order to simply copy directories from my OSX filesystem
to the drive and then burn onto a DVD-R disk. It sounds as though the
native OSX utilities diskcopy/diskutil and iTunes aleady provide this
functionality. Is this correct?

>
> FWIW the guy I sold my Devideon to is a friend has a 600Mhz iMac DV SE and
> it works great with the Devideon. The only difference is that since his
> iMac came with an internal CD-RW drive instead of DVD, it didn't have the
> Apple DVD Player installed. So we had to install it manually. The Apple
> DVD Player normally doesn't support Firewire drives. So we also downloaded
> a patch that allows it to work with Firewire.

Can you point to the patch? I think I may need this as well. Thanks.

"Arthur" <arthur8[at]boardermail.com> wrote in message
news:16e0bc53.0310210818.4edcf599[at]posting.google.com...
> This is very interesting. I am purchasing a firewire enclosure for am
> IDE DVD-R/RW+R/RW drive. I am planning to use it to backup my hard
> disk. I was hoping that I would not have to purchase Toast or
> Retrospect in order to simply copy directories from my OSX filesystem
> to the drive and then burn onto a DVD-R disk. It sounds as though the
> native OSX utilities diskcopy/diskutil and iTunes aleady provide this
> functionality. Is this correct?

If you use a supported DVD burner, yes. Though I'm not sure about iTunes
since I've never tried using it with DVD media. OSX discburner (Finder
burning) will burn a data DVD-R/-RW the same as a CD-R/-RW. Disc utility
will erase a DVD-RW. If you plan on making video DVDs that you'll need to
buy that software separately though. iDVD only works with internal drives.
Devideon's software only works with their Firewire enclosure. You may be
able to buy CaptyDVD separately iirc. But a friend has that with his LaCie
D2 DVD-R/-RW drive and it doesn't seem to produce as high a quality as iDVD
or Devideon. But if all you want is data storage you won't need extra
software.

> Can you point to the patch? I think I may need this as well. Thanks.

Unfortunately that was for a friend's iMac and I don't recall offhand. My
Cube came with an internal DVD-ROM drive so I didn't need the patch. You'll
only need it if you're Mac came with an internal CD-R/-RW drive. You'll
also need something like Pacifier iirc to install the Apple DVD player.
Then patch it afterwards to work with Firewire drives. Again, not needed if
your Mac has a DVD-ROM already. regards.....joe