Re: Burning DVD from Mac

On Jan 28, 11:16 pm, Jason <jasonmcrea...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi again Chris,

Regarding a few of Rainman's comments on using external DVD writers &
specifically the Sound Devices XLDVDRAM drive:

 I'm not sure if you mean the Sound Devices XLDVD burner. This is
actually a DVD RAM burner only. It won't burn DVD-R disks like a
laptop. If you are considering this external drive, do your research
first.

This is totally incorrect.  I have an XL-DVDRAM next to me connected
to my Powerbook, & have just successfully burned a DVD-R backup of
data on the Powerbook's internal drive using Toast, & then played back
the files from it in Quicktime...  The XL-DVDRAM drive supports all
major disk formats, as can be seen from the spec-*** that Sound
Devices supply.  What it can or can't write is dependent on the host-
machine it's connected to.

For example: when connected to a Mac, it'll burn DVD-Rs just fine (in
fact it wrote to my Philips media twice as fast as my Powerbook's
Superdrive), & can even be used as a DVD-RAM drive; the media mounts
in UDF, but can be re-formatted (using Disk Utility) to Mac-OS or MS-
DOS if required.  When connected to your 744T however, it will ONLY
write to DVD-RAMs, treating it as a read/write external hard drive.
Perhaps that's where Rainman was getting confused...

The problem was [with Rainman's drive] that the external
burner needed mains power to work, so plugging the burner and computer
into mains power was difficult on location.

The XL-DVDRAM drive runs off the Mac's firewire bus power, so you
don't need a mains power supply to use this drive.  If you want to use
it with a 744T running off the 7.2v Sony battery, then yes, you need a
wall-wart for the drive, but if you're running the 744T off an
external mains/battery supply, the drive will run off firewire bus
power.

You don't need to buy Toast. The Mac will do everything as is for you
without spending any hard earned money.

True.  However, what you CAN do with Toast which is very handy (that's
a bit of a pain within Finder) is you can make multiple backups of the
same data, plus other useful things:

e.g. Toast allows you to save a 'This is what I want to burn & how the
disc layout is' Toast-document that you can instantly recall at a
later date (assuming the raw data is still on your hard disk).  That
might sound a small thing, BUT, let's say you have a few files &
folders in different places on your Mac internal drive that you want
to collate & burn as one DVD-R (e.g. test tones, audio folders, scans
of cue sheets, rename folders when on the DVD but not on your hard
disk, don't want to include false take folders on your internal drive
etc), you can save this backup-list & recall/edit later in Toast which
I, personally, consider very useful & more flexible than using Finder
for burning.

I would urge you to avoid the external burner, it was always just a pain.
Fix your computer or get a new one.

.."Or get a new" computer?! Quite an amusing statement considering a
purchase of Toast was said to be using up "hard earned money"!  If you
want to save money Chris, sure, just get the Superdrive replaced
(assuming that really is the problem).  But if you want long-term
flexibility for only a little more money, consider the XL-DVDRAM.

FYI, the mechanism inside my XL-DVDRAM drive is a Matshita DVD-RAM
UJ-85JS.  The one inside the Powerbook is a DVD-R UJ-845E.  The
likelihood of the Xl-DVDRAM drive breaking is no more than the drive
in your Mac.

All the best,

Jason

Hello Jason,
Looks like I've learnt something today. Thanks, I'll go and dig the XL
DVD out of storage and give it another go.
.

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