External DVD drive patch for OSX 10.4.11

Question

External DVD drive patch for OSX 10.4.11

My built-in superdrive recently began to fail, so I bought a LaCie external drive and have connected it by FireWire. The Apple DVD Player is programmed not to work with an external drive in these circumstances, so I have started to use VLC instead. But I would prefer to use the Apple DVD Player.

The patch that is available on the net to solve this problem (dvdplayerpatcher) does not work with systems later than OS 10.4.4. Another patch that is around on the net removes some navigation restrictions in the DVD Player but does not make it work with an external drive. Can anyone suggest a source for a patch making the DVD Player work with an external drive that will work in OS 10.4.11? Or has anyone by any chance got a patched Apple DVD Player and/or the relevant patched framework — anything that will allow me to use the Apple DVD Player again — that I could download?

Many thanks in anticipation of help.

Posted on Jun 10, 2011 3:54 AM

Reply

Answer 1

a brody

Level 10

83,011 points

Jun 13, 2011 6:29 AM in response to Michael Graubart

http://www.macsales.com/ makes DVD drives that support Apple's DVD Players.

http://www.videolan.org/ VideoLan Client supports DVD playback that Apple's DVD Player software frequently does not play, and so does Interactual DVD Player (can't find a link at this time).

A third option is the patch from http://www.patchburn.de/ which may also support DVD Player playback.

A fourth option, many built-in DVD player options start to fail and so do other peripherals when the PRAM battery begins to fail. You may not see any other symptoms until it is fully failing (such as not able to startup the computer, the computer clock goes back to 1904 or 1969). Make sure if your machine is over 4 years old, this battery is replaced every 4 years.

Reply

Answer 2

Jun 13, 2011 7:39 AM in response to a brody

Thank you for all these ideas, A. Brody.

MacSales: potentially useful — only (as I said at the outset) I have already bought a LaCie external drive.

VideoLan: I can't find anything actually called VideoLan Client. But I imagine you mean VLC. That is what I am using (see my original post).

PatchBurn: I have Patchburn, I used it to generate a profile for my LaCie drive, but it does not help, because in OS !0.4 the Apple DVD Player is programmed not to work with external drives.

PRAM battery: thank you for this warning. I had my computer serviced two years ago, and I am pretty sure that the PRAM battery would have been replaced then. In any case, when my internal Pioneer drive started to fail, I was advised to use DVRFlash to update its fimware. I did so succesfully, but this did not cure the problem. I then tried to update to an even more recent firmware version and made a mistake, which has left my internal drive inoperative. But I will have the PRAM battery checked if I detect any more problems.

Reply

Answer 3

a brody

Level 10

83,011 points

Jun 13, 2011 7:45 AM in response to Michael Graubart

Yes I mean VLC.

Reply