verbatim dvd 16x

How fast is your burner?

They will not write/burn any faster than the speed of your DVD burner.

Pioneer.

But I always try to burn at the lowest, slowest speeds I can.

I see a definite rise in compatibility.

That's my view, and others. But it's your call.

You don't state what burner you have, but with the Pioneer models, if the disc hasn't been tested by Pioneer, it may only burn at 4X (or less).

The drive may also need a firmware update to enable use with faster speed media.

If you have a Pioneer, I'm guessing you have the DVR-107/A07 model. Even if that's not the correct model, you can find your drive on this page at Pioneer's website. For each drive, they have a DVD media compatibility chart that lists the media and the maximum speed the drive can it burn at.

If you do decide to get a new drive, I agree with David. Get the Pioneer DVR-110 or DVR-111, and burn at the slowest speeds available to you.

I agree with David I usually try to burn at lower speeds It works very well for me. Good Luck.

I'm not familiar with a DVR-108AA; it's very likely the same drive as the DVR-108/A08. The 108/A08 is a 16X drive, so either you're not using media that Pioneer has certified for 16X writing, or the Apple firmware in the drive has removed 16X speeds (wouldn't be the first time Apple has crippled the superdrives).

Please post the Hardware->Disc Burning info from System Profiler, so I can see what it reports about your drive. Like I said above, your drive is probably the same as the regular DVR-108.

Since your profile says you're from Ontario (doesn't specify Canada or California), this means that you've got a region 1 drive (for playback). The site you located is one of Pioneer's European sites, and I would be concerned that the firmware from that site might change the drive to a region 2, which wouldn't be desirable.

You should get the firmware from the site that I linked to in my previous post. Specifically, get the one for the DVR-108. It's a PC self-extracting executable, so you'll need to download it and then extract the files with Stuffit Expander.

Then, you need to get DVRFlash to perform the firmware update. It's a command line program, although there is a GUI version available which should work with your drive. I have not used the GUI version, however. The directions provided with DVRFlash are pretty detailed, so it should be fairly easy to perform the update. I believe the first time you do the flash, you'll need to force it, as you'll be told there's a mismatch. This is normal, since you're flashing an OEM drive with the retail firmware.

When the update is complete, reboot the computer, and System Profiler should report the drive as being a DVR-108. And, you should also now have 16X burning as an option.

Please be aware that doing this flash will void the warranty on your drive. Should something go wrong, you can end up with an inoperable drive. Perform the flash at your own risk.

I haven't had any problems flashing several of my drives, by that doesn't mean it works perfectly for everyone.

Post back here if you have any more questions. I'm happy to help out.

I'm glad that we've been able to figure out exactly which drive you have.

The page you linked to on XLR8yourmac is a good page. Some of the version numbers on the firmware and the DVRFlash software are outdated, but otherwise it looks to still be accurate.

I have not heard of any compatibility issues between the Pioneer firmware and the latest versions of OSX. Usually the issues arise when you install a new-to-market drive in your computer, and System Profiler will show it as "Not Supported". This is only because the drive is too new for OSX to have built-in support for it. When this occurs, you download PatchBurn and use it to create a profile for your drive so that OSX will see and treat it as supported.

I know that OSX 10.4.6 provides built-in support for the latest Pioneer firmware on the DVR-110D, which is a very new drive (only recently superseded by the DVR-111). The DVR-110D is what shipped in my Quad, and I've already flashed it twice to the official Pioneer versions. I've also done the firmware flash to a DVR-104. Given that the DVR-108 is at least a year old, OSX should have built-in support for it. I'd be very suprised if it didn't.

The XLR8yourmac page uses a hacked version of the firmware for region-free operation. Unless you need a region-free drive, I'd stronly suggest using the latest Pioneer firmware from Pioneer's site.

Only you can decide if you want to try to flash the drive. Thankfully, if you do decide to flash it and something goes wrong (which isn't all that likely, but still possible), a replacement DVR-110 or DVR-111 can be found for only $40 - $50 USD.

Great! Glad to know it worked.