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Just saw these puppies at Circuit City the other day. Anyone had a chance to try them yet? I can load a hacked firmware that tries to burn RW at 2X on my A04, but not sure if it will work or not.
They're $25 for a 5-pak...might be worth trying. Any thoughts?
Raist
Ok, I broke down and nabbed a 5 pack of these. My system went fubar in the middle of testing--Damn WIN98 didn't like the constant rebooting I guess, who knows. In the process of restoring from incremental backups, then I'll continue testing.
Remember, this is with an A04. Only one FW update was found that allowed a 2X write on these. Only problem is, it also allows 2X on the 1X RW also. The 1.31 and later 2X4All fw's reported the disk as 2X capable in CD SPeed, but only RNM 4.5 and DVD Decryptor would burn them at 2X after I moved to 1.40 2X4All FW. Primo would only do 1X, and RNM 4.0 and the OEM RN-DX would only allow 1X burns. I did monkey up my 1X TDK when I tested for the Erase Bug with a quick erase in DVDDecrypter. I reverted to 1.31 fw to recover it with a Full Erase in Primo.
I was able to snap off a copy of the new Stich move via ISO Read and Write with DVDCecrypter at 2X. It played flawlessly in both my APEX and v4 PS2 using the 1.40 2X4All hacked firmware published by our good friend Gradius, and available at http://www.dvd-recordable.net. It is the RPC-1 and 2X release.
Unfortunately, a newer PX Engine that got installed somewhere down the line didn't like my Hitachi DVD-ROM. I have reverted back to my original .342 engine from my last full backup, and it seems to agree so far. The newer one was reporting only a 667 TOC on my source disk--even DMC! .342 appears to recognize my A04 and Hitachi reader, so I will begin testing with PS2 Games shortly. First I need to go through my Increm/Diff Backups to isolate the screwy PX update and rebuild my other apps from those backups first. Then I'll continue with PS2 Tests.
I've included a quick scan of the labels so you can have UPC's, Item #'s, and idea of what packaging to look for. The 5-Pack has an outside label with UPC #0-020356-48271-8 and Item ID #DVD-RW47AS5. The DVD tops are matte silver, with polished silver logos/text--no screenprint. The bottoms are the typical blue/grey with a slightly more green hue compared to the 1X TDK's. The substrate seems to be a bit thinner, and allows a little bit of concnetrated light to pass through. The light passes as a dark Indigo, akin to a PS1 Pressed CD.
CDSpeed 2.02 reports MFG ID: TDK502sakuM3, 1X-2X with my 1.31 2X4All and higher firmwares, but only gets 2X unlocked at 1.40 2X4All fw. Did not try the new 1.41 from Pioneer--will wait to see if it gets cracked.
If anyone decides to use this 1.40 crack, be advised of the 1X RW issue. Have the older Prassi Primo installed for erasing these at 1X. Other applications--including Stomp Backup My PC--will try to erase them at 2X and you will have to manually set burn speeds to 1X or they will fail and have to be full erased at 1X in Primo to restore them.
I hope to post success/fail with PS2 backups tonight.
Raist
Here's the scan of the case cards from the 2X DVD-RW TDK's I found at Circuit City. 5 for $25 US. It was a high res scan, so even with 75% jpeg compression, it's still about 300K. Sorry about that, but I needed to make sure the small text was readable.
It may appear too small to read when it first loads. If your browser can zoom, it's readable. Others may need to save/open in a picture viewer/editor.
Raist
GRRRRR>>>>these damned things are driving me crazy!!!!!
Buggers are not liked by my poor abused little v5. They read, kinda' sort of. Nearly got DMC to boot. Onimusha hangs at CLS just before it scans the memory cards. Not even the tiny little Fantavision or PPG Relish Rampage would load. Tried all combinations I could think of. Unhacked/hacked fw, 1x/forced 2x burns, Decrypter, RN-DX, RNM, Primo (figured out a way to "hack" one of the Px files and managed to force the older versions to allow 2X burning, but that was still a no go.) I noticed the burn speed was erratic at times, and underburn had to kick in a good bit in the 2X attempts--some speeds dropped to <1X during burning. This was not good. Soooo.....
Broke down and did some benchmarking on my 3 test discs, then compared them to my -R burns, originals, and my trusty TDK 1X DVD-RW. These 2X tend to offer up a substantially lower transfer rate. At some points it dipped down to <1X at the same points my TDK 1X would post >2X and the source DVD was pegging >3X. Here in lies the problem with these, I think. Access times were off the scale as well--one disk pegged >450ms towards the 4GB line (should've been <350 on a RW, <250 for -R or pressed).
For PC use, they ran like a champ. Did a 2 Disk differential backup/verify/and partial restores with mixed file locations and they ran just fine--although at about a 1.5X transfer rate. (the crappy Memorex RW's can even sustain a 2X!) DVD movies will play back ok--they're data is highly compressed and only technically need to maintain an average 1X stream to keep the buffers full anyway. Any movie I burned on these at unhacked/hacked legit 1X or forced 2X burns played just fine in the PS2. It's the hard data stream for the games that just can't load worth a crap.
It was sad to see a TDK out-done by a Memorex........then again, I am trying to force a marginally powered A04 to do an A05's job. These may have better success with an A05/A06 or one of the other combo drives. Better laser power regulation is the key to success on these 2X RW's. This tired old A04 has really been put through the paces. About shredded my favorite 1X TDK again--having to rebuild it again as I type this.
Word to the wise: Unless you want to use these for backing up your PC with BackUp My PC type utilities, or want to test your DVD9 to DVD5 movie conversions without waiting an hour for a 1X burn on RW, these are not a good choice if you have an A04. They even had poor performance marks with a 1X burn on the Pioneer 1.40 firmware. They are a nice price though--saw them at Best Lie also in a 25 pc cake for $60. Not bad if you have a few friends who want to pitch in and split them up. If you want an RW source for testing PS2 with an A04 or A03, go with the 1X TDK's instead of these 2X's.
I will hang on to these and try again when I move to a 4X drive soon. Been seeing some nice deals on the 05 and 06 series. Even found an External clone in USB/Firewire casing for a good price locally--could prove useful at some job sites....might have to invest in that bad boy!
I'm hoping to see some Verbatims come to the area before too long. I'll probably give them a shot as well if I find any. There is also the possibility of a new 1.41 fw rebuild offering better support for forcing a 2X on RW as well. Until then, I'll just have to be patient......or buy a faster drive.
Raist
This makes interesting reading Raist :-)
I saw some 2x Princo (white tops) DVD-RW here at a computer market in Sydney for $40 AU for a ten piece cake thats about $27 US.
Apart from the genuine Pioneer 2X DVD-RW that comes with the A05 thats all I have seen in High speed DVD-RW
Oh yeah the 2X pioneer and 1X optodisc work very well on my abused Ver5 PS2.
:)
Yeah, I'm thinking it's the cracked A04 that has a problem burning them for use in my PS2. TDK's are tough little bastards--always have been, ranking just behind Verbatims and Riteks for the price/quality debate.
It's gotta be just an inconsistent enough burn on the A04 to cause a problem--an A05/A06 will probably do a better job with these. I can burn a DVD Movie on one at 2X and play it back fine. Those vob's don't really need a high read rate to play smoothly, and are more resistent to errors than raw data anyway.
I have noticed the quality of my regular 1X Write TDK has dropped considerably since I knackered it up with the bugged 2X erase that happened while I had the cracked fw loaded. I was able to rebuild it at a 1X write when I reverted to my 1.31 firmware, but it's started to show some artifacting and skipping audio during the FMV's that it didn't do before. Regular DVD playback is fine, but not the Demo movies and cut scenes during the games, and I occasionally have to reboot a few times to get a game to load.
I was planning on moving to an A05/A06 anyway, just waiting for them to come down again. I got my A04 for just under $200 nearly 2 yrs ago--the A05 is in that range already. May be upgrading soon, then I'll know for certain how these puppies work.
Raist