RITEK @2x with 1.90 firmware

[erwan]

seen on dvdwriters website :

Pioneer A03 / A04 Firmware Updates Posted Friday, 6 September, 2002 by kila_m
Pioneer have released a couple of new firmware updates for the A04 and A03 DVD writers. The changes are:

"Add 2X DVD burning on CMC and Ritek medias"

[ http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/dvdf/R3TA190.EXE ]
[ http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/dvdf/R4TA131.EXE ]
[ http://www.firmware.fr.st ]

thought it might interest some of us.

i buy my medias on shop4tech, they are labelled primedisc, but are in fact RITEK.
so this is good news.

erwan

[padre]

Looks like this will help A04/104 users more than A03/103 users. I just tried it on my A03 and it doesn't burn the RitekG03 (PrimeDisc) at 2x.

Saw this on the firmware forum:

Differences between v1.90 (A03/103) and v1.31 (A04/104):

MEI 00V001
TAIYOYUDEN
CMC00RG200
RITEKG03

PVCW000001Q9
PVCW000002A9

[alexnoe]

CMC at 2x? Are they crazy?

And:
Support for Ritek at 2x means nothing more than that there is at least one type of Ritek that can be written at 2x. It is of course possible that there is also Ritek 1x media around which will never be capable of 2x speed.

EDIT my "TraxData 1x-2x" are still only considered 1x compatible.

[atreides93]

Thanks for posting the firmware links and the information :)

I have a bunch of ritek disks but I doubt they're 1X..but at least it means in the future maybe we can get 2x Ritek's I think i might have seen some somewhere.

[alexnoe]

Additional node:

I was unable to make the windows flasher work, and neither did the dos flasher for 1.80.

Fortunately, I still had the dos flasher included in 1.68, which worked fine (btw: unlike Pioneer says, this flasher wil also downgrade firmware)

[padre]

Yeah, I couldn't get the Windows 2000 flash to do the upgrade. So I built a DOS boot disk, copied the flash and utility to diskette. That worked fine. I'm at v1.90 now. No burn difference with the Ritek G3, but I don't think I will see one. Looks like the A04/104 is the only one going to 2x with that.

Anyone out there who upgrades to v1.90, let us know if you can burn Ritek G3 (or PrimeDisc) at 2x.

Thanks!

Padre

[alexnoe]

On the firmware page, the note about added support for Ritek/CMC was only stated behind the A04-upgrade.

[wilhelm]

Primedisc on my 104 does not work at 2x with Nero 5.5.90. Of course burning speed IS 2x. Nero reported no errors, message "Finished
successful" appears as usual. But the disc is crap. Massiv read
errors at the outer areas (Dvd Decrypter at 60-70%). After 2 bad
burns i tried to downgrade. No go under Xp pro or W98. Maybe a bootdisk (like padre says) will let me downgrade back to 1.20.

[alexnoe]

There's no need to downgrade. You can still select 1x speed for this media.
But I wonder why Pioneer enabled 2x writing for these discs if it doesn't work properly.

[DrOutro]

More opinions if it worked or not, i have pioneer 104 and was just buying ritek dvd-r's!

[Prosper]

I'm considering getting some of the cheap 'leda' DVD-R's from shop4tech - I'm assuming they're CMC's. Oddly enough, my DVD player doesn;t play _any_ other brand of CD-R's, so I'm hoping the DVD-R's are similar, and being able to write at 2X, well...

[Ghamu]

So I shouldn't upgrade the firmware? Does Pioneer claim and stabilty/performance enhancements?

[golfextreme]

Well, I burned my first Ritek at 2x with no problems and the movie looked good scanning through it. I'll be trying more later and letting everyone know. I'm using the a04.

[nesteaboy]

I installed the new firmware in my DVR-104 drive. The 4.7G PrimeDiscs (Ritek) that used to work at 1x now automatically burn at 2x on DVDDecrypter. I've tried 3 discs, ALL FAILED.

1st Disc -> Burns OK. But afterwards, nothing reads it. Not even DVR-104 itself.
2nd Disc -> Tries to write first sector, drive spits it back out. Disc becomes useless
3rd Disc -> Same problem as 1st disc

I just bought 25x 4.7G PrimeDiscs....this is not cool!!!

I have three questions :
1 : How do I downgrade back to 1.20?
2 : Is there anyway to select 1x burn speed in DVDDecrypter? My drop-down box is greyed out.
3 : If this is an official Pioneer release, why isn't it on Pioneer's website?

Thanks.

[alexnoe]

I've never tried it, but maybe the DVR-A03 DOS loader also works for DVR-A04. If this is the case, then you can use it to downgrade.

But note that this is not a good idea. As an example, an obsolete version of mtkflash is likely to cause a bad-flash on newer drives based on mediatek chipsets.

If DVDDecryptor doesn't allow setting speed to 1x, then you should mail its author about this bug.

Pioneer is crappily slow at updating their website. 1.65 and 1.68 have also been launched on the "firmware page" long before they have been on the official pioneer download page.

[Nogami]

I just used the UPGDVD.exe utility included in the archive. Seemed to work OK for flashing my A03 to 1.90 under windows. Running XP Pro SP1.

N.

[Ghamu]

So bottem line, don't upgrade the firmware, and don't install XP SP1 (yet)?

[brett]

Didn't even see this thread when I started mine today, so I'll just say it again here.

I upgraded my DVR-104's firmware to 1.31, and DVD Decrypter started burning 1X Riteks at 2X, which produces coasters with a big stripe in the middle (will not play past the stripe in ANYTHING).

DVD Decrypter doesn't let you select speed, so I can no longer use DVD Decrypter to burn. I can't downgrade my firmware, either, but I don't think the ability to burn more media at 2X is a bad thing, it has just brought up a problem with DVD Decrypter.

So now I'm burning my images with Prassi instead, and everything is fine.

[erwan]

@brett :
at what speed in prassi?

erwan

[John Miller]

I've just updated my Pioneer A04 to version 1.31 today.

I still had a spindle of a 100 pieces ritek G03 (which i bought in
belgium trough softmedia@skynet.be, which sells them as their own nameless brand 'softmedia')
I just burned a disc at 2x speed with Nero 5.5.8.0 without
any problems at all. This disc contained a movie of 4.2 GB so the disk was almost full to the outer edge. I've skipped trough the movie and everything played fine. I double checked the last 10 minutes of the disk and it played fine also.
All i can say is: thank you Pioneer, for that firmware update. Now
my batch of Ritek G03 all of a sudden are 2x speed instead of 1x speed and i don't seem to have any problems at all...

[Sy]

I'd suggest you upgrade else your player might melt down:eek:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-958251.html

~Sy

[padre]

John Miller

That's great, glad to hear the new firmware has help ya! I just wish it allowed 2x burning of RitekG3's with the A03! It apparently doesn't.

Oh well, was going to buy a new 4x burning when they start shipping anyway.

Padre

[John Miller]

Sy:
This has nothing to do with the issue of 2x writing on Ritek Media...

The message that you are linking to is about the new 4x media that are
not released yet. But offcourse, once they are released and you are going to try burning 4x media on your 2x A04 drive, you should upgrade your firmware first or you'll have trouble.
Nothing to worry about right now anyway....

[Sy]

Originally posted by John Miller
Sy:
This has nothing to do with the issue of 2x writing on Ritek Media...

The message that you are linking to is about the new 4x media that are
not released yet. But offcourse, once they are released and you are going to try burning 4x media on your 2x A04 drive, you should upgrade your firmware first or you'll have trouble.
Nothing to worry about right now anyway....

I wasn't referring to the ritek media..... Some people were debating wether or not to upgrade their firmware... The article mentions that the new firmware has a bugfix that keeps the drive from overheating. So wether or not you will or will not be able to burn 2x on ritek media, you should still upgrade the firmware.

~Sy

[golfextreme]

I just upgraded to the new firmaware to fix overheating and one thing it did was make my burning speed of ritek media go back to 1x speed. This is a good thing because the 2x caused more coasters than ones that worked.

[alexnoe]

Has 1.32 indeed removed 2x support for Ritek? If that can be confirmed, I have to update the FAQ...

[golfextreme]

It has changed the speed in every program I've tried. DVDdecrypter, Nero 5.5.9.9, and DVD Workshop.

[brett]

Originally posted by erwan
@brett :
at what speed in prassi?

erwan

Only tried at 1X in Prassi... I assume it would screw up just like DVD Decrypter at 2X, unless there is some kind of seriour bug in DVD Decrypter.

[alexnoe]

It's not important which speed your software offers! Some crap programs will always offer 2x.

It's important which speed the disc is written at.

[brett]

Umm, what are you talking about?

It's very important which speed the software offers. If the speed the disc is written at is important, then how can the speed offered by the software not matter? If the burner will allow 2X writing, then it is the software that dictates which speed the disc will be written at, so the two are obviously tied together. The fact that DVD Decrypter only offers max speed (thereby burning 1X Riteks at 2X and creating coasters) is important.

[alexnoe]

I mean, there is software around that will always offer 2x writing, even if 1x compatible media is inserted. The writer will then simply ignore the command and burn at 1x.

[erwan]

one thing for sure is that this particular firmware update generates a lot of talking ! :) yes : ritek @2x on my a02 makes me drill also!

thus we have to dissociate :
-the speed offered by the software,
-the speed offered by the hardware (here : a03/a04)
-the speed offered by the media.

about the speed offered by the software, it seems that some softwares dont "sense" the speeds offered by the hardware. may be it is just hardcoded (i hope not...). for instance recordnow max tells me i can burn at 16x ... i wish i could ...

about the media speed, i always noticed that what ever media you use (cd,dvd, ...) it always tends to be more unstable when used at their max speed. this depends of course of the quality : nobody ever complained with expensive media at 2x (like pioneer).
i feel like this is what is happening with ritek @2x on ao4.

finally,
it seems that a03 + newest firmware still cannot burn ritek at 2x and indeed it is not clearly stated on pionner's web site if this new feature is for a04/a03 or a03 only : if anyone suceeded to burn a ritek at 2x on a A03, please say so.

erwan

[erwan]

oki so this is certain, a03+1.90 wont burn ritek :(


Media table from v1.90:

Pioneer Video Co.
PVC 10-01
Mitsubishi Chem Co
TDK101
PVC001001
MCIG01
TDKG010000d9
MCC 00RG200
MXL RG01
TDKG02000000
TDK301sakue3
TDK302saku=3
TDK401saku=3
JVC/VictorT7

Media table from v1.31:

Pioneer Video Co.
PVC 10-01
Mitsubishi Chem Co
TDK101
PVC001001
MCIG01
TDKG010000d9
MCC 00RG200
MXL RG01
TDKG02000000
MEI 00V001
TAIYOYUDEN
CMC00RG200
RITEKG03
TDK301sakue3
TDK302saku=3
TDK401saku=3
JVC/VictorT7
PVCW000001Q9
PVCW000002A9

erwan

[alexnoe]

Can you look into f/w 1.32 and verify if Ritek has indeed been taken out of the 2x-compatible media list?

[fletch]

Media table for v1.32:

Pioneer Video Co.
PVC 10-01
Mitsubishi Chem Co
TDK101
PVC001001
MCIG01
TDKG010000d9
MCC 00RG200
MXL RG01
TDKG02000000
MEI 00V001
TAIYOYUDEN
TDK301sakue3
TDK302saku=3
TDK401saku=3
JVC/VictorT7
PVCW000001Q9
PVCW000002A9


Media table for v1.31:

Pioneer Video Co.
PVC 10-01
Mitsubishi Chem Co
TDK101
PVC001001
MCIG01
TDKG010000d9
MCC 00RG200
MXL RG01
TDKG02000000
MEI 00V001
TAIYOYUDEN
CMC00RG200
RITEKG03
TDK301sakue3
TDK302saku=3
TDK401saku=3
JVC/VictorT7
PVCW000001Q9
PVCW000002A9

As you can see, there's no:

CMC00RG200 and RITEKG03 in V1.32

[thxtof]

That makes sense:
I updated the firmware from 1.20 to 1.32 and my Riteks G3 are still not supported in x2.

[erwan]

what the hell is pioneer doing???
ritek support in a04/v1.31 and not in a03/v1.90, but finally not in a04/1.32 !

this doesnt make sense :(
i hope they have a technical argument for this and not a commercial argument (ritek not willing to pay some expensive licence of some kind ...).

may be some genius coder will deliver us a hacked firmware with an exhaustive media table ...
since firmware get hacked from rpc2 to rpc1, i believe everything is possible ...

erwan

[erwan]

just an idea :
would dvdsynth not be able to fake the manufacturer's code ?

erwan

[alexnoe]

dvdsynth works on file level, doesn't it.

[erwan]

well it is used so but it looks like dvdsynth can intercept scsi commands going from to the system to the writer and from the writer to the system :

scsi_result_t ScsiCommand(
DvsDeviceKernel* self,
const unsigned char* cdb,
int cdblen,
unsigned char* buffer,
unsigned long* pbuflen,
int inout,
SenseData* sense
);


here we have the SCSI command descriptor block but also the sensedata (datas coming back frorm the writer i guess).

so if we could intercept the 0x0E operation code and sent back good media code, then we might be able to cheat ... and burn much more medias a 2x.

to cheat with advdinfo would not be so hard then, but to cheat a burning sofware might be another thing.

erwan

[alexnoe]

Did you know that every single media needs special optimization for 2x writing (because there were no 2x specs when these writers were built)? Even if you could "cheat", I'm sure you get nothing but coasters then...

[erwan]

yep i'm well aware of that.
that's why i buy branded media.

but i get pissed of when i see that one media labelled 1x the day before gets suddenly labelled 2x the day after.

pioneer is abusing us and i'm pretty sure it is a question of money : what is this media table for !? it's the media manufacturer's responsibility to tell us the media speed (always was with cd), it's not the hardware's seller to do so.

and what's more, it looks like people here with A04 burn RITEK_G03 @2x now.


so i just had the crazy idea to fool my writer when inserting a RITEK (for i know they can burn @2x) and make it believe it is a pioneer or any other media that is "authorized" @2x.

but for sure i would try to burn @2x on cheap media.

well one can dream :) or expect some good will from pioneer ! :)

got to go back to work or at least make my boss believe i'm working ! :D

erwan