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Hacking the Pioneer DVR-107 to burn low-cost 4x DVDs at 8x (and other cool things!) I purchased a Pioneer DVR-107 the week that we first received them, in eager anticipation of upgrading my older Pioneer DVR-105 drive. I was used to burning DVDs at 2x, this would be a nice bump, being able to immediately start burning at 4x, and eventually, 8x. I burn a few discs a week at home, and it always seemed that the longest process was waiting for Toast to burn the disc. At first it was an hour with my old 2x burner, then when I bought the DVR-107 it cut my time down to 30 minutes since I was burning at 4x (who could afford 8x media at first - $5 a disc or more!). I didn't expect 8x media to drop in price anytime soon, it's still well outside of my price range, so I bought a good supply of the 4x rated media we have here at OWC. This media is top-notch, I have burned over 100pcs of it without a problem, it is very reliable. Well, a couple of weeks ago the first Mac based firmware flash utility for Pioneer drives became available. Not from Pioneer, as they seem to not ever fully support the Mac platform, but from an website in France - macetvideo.com. While this may not seem like an important thing, it sure is - If you've ever needed to update firmware on a Pioneer SuperDrive, you've needed to install it inside of a PC and use the flash utility that Pioneer provided. Quite an inconvenience if you don't have a PC lying around. I know I sure don't. This allows us Mac users to be able to update the firmware on Pioneer drives all back to the DVR-104 - and also to enhance the drives in ways that Pioneer didn't want us to. :>) I am going to concentrate on the items that this firmware patch allows for the Pioneer DVR-107, as it's the current shipping drive, and the one I have experience with. Downloading the firmware patch utility for the DVR-107 gets you the most recent Pioneer "official" firmware, version 1.15, and it also gets you an "unofficial" version, version 1.13. Be aware that there are updates available on the sites linked in this article for drives all the way back to the DVR-104. So if you've got an older burner, you can update it as well, but not with all the features that the current Pioneer DVR-107 offers. NOTE: It has been reported that some Apple OEM Pioneer drives cannot use this utility, and will report "no supported drive found". There does not seem to be a workaround for this limitation at this time. ANOTHER NOTE: I have been asked multiple times how to install yet another firmware from Pioneer, I have read a number of reports that this firmware is not stable. At this time I suggest you not install it unless you have a PC handy to reflash the drive to an older version, as if the drive does not respond there is no way on a Mac to resurrect it. Be warned... This firmware patch allows you to:
Of course, if your ultimate goal is to just update your firmware to the latest Pioneer official version, this will certainly do that, and the firmware utility will come in handy down the road too, if and when Pioneer makes new updates available. So how hard is to install this firmware update?
Download the software from MacTevidio (also available from MacUpdate, but you have to go through the French page, it's at the bottom. Here's a translated version from Google (well, kind of translated... you'll understand what I mean if you read it). Double click on the Pioneer DVR-107 Updater file in the downloaded folder. A shell script will run, and you'll see this in the Terminal session it opens: Press Return. Press "y" Press "y" Restart! Upon restart, open Toast. Before: And after, with the same media. And finally, in the info box about the drive mechanism, That's it! A simple 5 minute procedure to be able to use low-cost 4x DVD-R media at the full rated 8x burning speed in your Pioneer DVR-107 drive! Note: I have shown the results / differences in speed using Roxio Toast - this will also allow Apple's iApps to burn at higher speeds, it's just easier to show the difference using Toast. Also, please do not ask me how to go about modifying the different firmware(s) available to be used with this flash utility, I have not experimented with that and do not plan to, I am happy with the hacked firmware that is working for me right now. :>) Thanks! |