After Market Firewire Burning on a Mac
December 10, 2005 11:30 AM Subscribe
Will an IDE DVD Burner "just work" with an iMac G5, if put in an external drive enclosure, and plugged in via Firewire or USB 2.0?
I have an NEC 2500A DVD burner that is currently in a PC machine running Debian Linux. Burning is in a flakey state in Debian unstable right now, and I would really like to be able to burn DVDs on my iMac G5, which only has a Combo drive.
If I were to go get a Firewire or USB 2.0 drive enclosure, that could accommodate a 5.25" CD device, would it work with my Mac? There are such enclosures listed on Amazon, but they are a small minority of enclosures. The drive I have does show up as working on a Mac with Toast in a cursory Google search, but I'm not sure about working externally, as PowerMacs seem to be the norm. Will I have to use a program such as Toast (that is, will Mac OS X not recognize this as a DVD burning device)?
I've never done anything like this with a Mac, as I'm fairly new to the platform.
I'd love to just get the Lacie Lightscribe external DVD burner that they have at the Apple Store, but alas I can't spring for the $200 right now.
My iMac is running OS X, version 10.4.3.
I have an NEC 2500A DVD burner that is currently in a PC machine running Debian Linux. Burning is in a flakey state in Debian unstable right now, and I would really like to be able to burn DVDs on my iMac G5, which only has a Combo drive.
If I were to go get a Firewire or USB 2.0 drive enclosure, that could accommodate a 5.25" CD device, would it work with my Mac? There are such enclosures listed on Amazon, but they are a small minority of enclosures. The drive I have does show up as working on a Mac with Toast in a cursory Google search, but I'm not sure about working externally, as PowerMacs seem to be the norm. Will I have to use a program such as Toast (that is, will Mac OS X not recognize this as a DVD burning device)?
I've never done anything like this with a Mac, as I'm fairly new to the platform.
I'd love to just get the Lacie Lightscribe external DVD burner that they have at the Apple Store, but alas I can't spring for the $200 right now.
My iMac is running OS X, version 10.4.3.
XLR8yourmac is a great resource for adding external drives.
posted by birdsquared at 4:20 PM on December 10, 2005
posted by birdsquared at 4:20 PM on December 10, 2005
I have two DVD burners in external cases (one Firewire, the other Firewire/USB2) that work fine for me. I used Patchburn previously, but iDVD 5 gives me the option of creating a disk image I can then burn with Toast. I was able to burn DVDs from the Finder as well. They've worked with OS 9 as well as all the incarnations of OS X.
Most of my DVD creation involved DVD Studio Pro, so there might be some iDVD quirks I'm not aware of.
One suggestion about enclosures: many of them come with external power supplies (think: wall wart). It's an extra piece you have to lug around and if you lose it, you're screwed. Look at enclosures with internal supplies and that use the standard 3-prong power cord. If you lose the cord, it's easy to find another.
posted by forrest at 5:18 PM on December 10, 2005
Most of my DVD creation involved DVD Studio Pro, so there might be some iDVD quirks I'm not aware of.
One suggestion about enclosures: many of them come with external power supplies (think: wall wart). It's an extra piece you have to lug around and if you lose it, you're screwed. Look at enclosures with internal supplies and that use the standard 3-prong power cord. If you lose the cord, it's easy to find another.
posted by forrest at 5:18 PM on December 10, 2005
Response by poster: Thanks for the input, folks. This was all helpful. I'll try to remember to check back in with the results of the enclosure I get (it's in the mail now).
posted by teece at 11:47 PM on December 10, 2005
posted by teece at 11:47 PM on December 10, 2005
Response by poster: For posterity, here is the update for what I did. I bought the cheapest, no-name 5.25 IDE to Firewire/USB2.0 enclosure I could find. It's supposedly a brand called "Anyware" but that name does not show up on the box or drive. The model no. is ME-340, and I got it from MWave.com. It is based on the (often maligned) PL 3507 chip-set. Price was the key factor here -- had I more cash, I would have bought something different. This unit does only need a regular power cord, no wall wart, so that's cool. It's not too terribly ugly.
It seems to be working fine for me. It works with Disk Utility and Popcorn right out of the box. It plays DVD movies in DVD player fine. I haven't tried booting from it yet, which is supposedly a problem with this chip-set, but I don't need that feature. It does not show up as supported in iDVD, so it looks like I might need patch burn for that. But, since I can just export a project in iDVD and then burn it with Disk Utility, I don't think I'll bother.
It works well enough, thanks for the tips from all. (I may just find a Pioneer slim DVD burner and swap out the one in my iMac, after poking around on XLR8yourmac. One day).
posted by teece at 11:14 PM on December 14, 2005
It seems to be working fine for me. It works with Disk Utility and Popcorn right out of the box. It plays DVD movies in DVD player fine. I haven't tried booting from it yet, which is supposedly a problem with this chip-set, but I don't need that feature. It does not show up as supported in iDVD, so it looks like I might need patch burn for that. But, since I can just export a project in iDVD and then burn it with Disk Utility, I don't think I'll bother.
It works well enough, thanks for the tips from all. (I may just find a Pioneer slim DVD burner and swap out the one in my iMac, after poking around on XLR8yourmac. One day).
posted by teece at 11:14 PM on December 14, 2005
This thread is closed to new comments.
Forum searches show it running out of the box though.
posted by arruns at 11:47 AM on December 10, 2005