DVD Drives

On Thu, 04 Jan 2007 17:37:00 -0800, Myauk Has Frothed:

Usually.

On 4 Jan 2007 17:37:00 -0800, "Myauk" put finger to keyboard and composed:

I haven't seen inside many DVD-Rs, but I would expect that the HD based recorders are most likely to use IDE DVD loaders. In fact I've substituted the burner in a supermarket DVD-R similar to the following with an LG IDE burner.

More pictures:

Here's what looks like an IDE drive, but with a flex cable instead of the typical 40-pin ribbon:

The PCB appears capable of supporting both types, if one were to add a

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but this exploded diagram of a Panasonic DMR-E85H appears to show an IDE flex cable (22) connected to a standard IDE HD (21) via an adapter PCB (28):

I guess this means that Panasonic DVD loaders (aka "RAM drives") are also IDE types ???

- Franc Zabkar

Not the ones I've seen. They like 'em proprietary.

Mark Z.

On Fri, 05 Jan 2007 07:00:24 -0600, Mark D. Zacharias Has Frothed:

Just for the hell of it I popped open my Lite On All Write recorder and yanked the drive out of it and put it in a USB case. The drive read discs ok but I couldn't get it to record. Must have proprietary firmware. Also have a Panasonic stand alone DVDR that I should experiment with. Maybe try swapping the drives, trying the Pana drive in the USB case. Give me something to do while I don't get around so well on a messed up foot.

Might want to check your recording software as well. I know that Nero requires updates for newer drives all the time.

On Fri, 05 Jan 2007 11:56:54 -0500, JW Has Frothed:

I thought of that but I have a new HP LiteScribe drive inside the PC. Besides Nero, I also tried the Couffin VSO engine that my copy software uses and that didn't work either. Maybe the firmware of the drive is missing some code that a PC drive has, don't know for sure but it was interesting to experiment with.

Many of the ones that I've worked on, particularly the Chinese no-brand supermarket specials, appear to have in them an absolutely bog-standard IDE interface DVD drive, even down to the standard bus cable and power connector, and standard side screw placements ... I wouldn't imagine that the control software is anything to do with the drive itself, but will certainly be proprietry. At the end of the day, all that is needed to run a standard drive, is a front end that can handle the IDE protocols to get data from the drive, and send it back. What is done with the data by the software once it has got it, and what is done by the software before sending to the drive, is neither here nor there, as far as the drive, as a piece of hardware, is concerned ??

Arfa

Arfa Daily wrote: > Many of the ones that I've worked on, particularly the Chinese no-brand

Information at is fairly interesting (but now dated) about the IDE interface in DVD players/recorders OEM'd by Sampo. Some player owners have even hacked hard drives, compact flash and network interfaces into their equipment!

-- Adrian C