HP DVD300i Made By NEC - Possibly Dual Format?

[Dre]

I just bought a HP DVD300i, which is a DVD+R/RW 4x drive, and I've found evidence that the drive is based on the NEC ND-1100a DVD-+R/RW drive (also called the NEC ND-1300). The NEC drive is a dual format DVD+-R/RW DVD Writer.

I scanned the label on the bottom and included a link to the picture.
http://home.mindspring.com/~andresc/DVD300i.jpg

First, in the lower left hand corner is ND-1100a, which is the model for NEC's Dual Format DVD+-R/RW drive.

Second, I looked up the FCC ID, which is in the upper right. The documents at the FCC indicate that this is a DVD writer made by NEC. If you look at the manual at the FCC website, you can see that this drive supports both -+ formats.
https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/oet/forms/reports/Search_Form.hts?mode=Edit&form=Exhibits&application_id=549173&fcc_id=A3DLVLDB-0201


When I get a chance, I'm going to purchase some DVD-R media and see what happens. It could be that HP didn't want to pay royalties for DVD-, so they disabled DVD- writing via the bios?


-Dre

[CouJo]

In Germany there was much trouble about the NEC 1100A and the NEC 1300A. First NEC has announced a DVD-+R/W combodrive with type ND-1100A. But then a drive - also named as ND 1100A - was bundled with some PC and this drive wasn't a combodrive. After this NEC has renamed the combodrive to NEC ND-1300A...

A neverending story... but I think the DVD300 is a ND 1100A and therefor a + only drive.

Greets, CouJo!

[Dre]

Originally posted by CouJo
In Germany there was much trouble about the NEC 1100A and the NEC 1300A. First NEC has announced a DVD-+R/W combodrive with type ND-1100A. But then a drive - also named as ND 1100A - was bundled with some PC and this drive wasn't a combodrive. After this NEC has renamed the combodrive to NEC ND-1300A...

A neverending story... but I think the DVD300 is a ND 1100A and therefor a + only drive.

Greets, CouJo!


Did you go to the FCC links I posted? The manual says this drive can write -+ formats. The capability is their. The quesiton is, can you enable it with some kind of firmware hack.

[CouJo]

Did you see the date of the FCC stuff? If you have an OEM NEC 1100A, you have a + only drive!

Look at this link: http://www.pcbuzzard.de/default.php?cPath=228_399

There you will find 3 NEC DVD burners - only one is a combo drive - the ND 1300A!

[Gil T Pleasure]

Here's an interesting article taken from News.com (http://news.com.com/2009-1088-984352.html?tag=lh), which relates to this thread:


(DVD+R) + (DVD-R) - (DVD+R) = DVD-R

Astute buyers of some of Apple's latest crop of flat-screen iMacs have noticed that their DVD-burners are made by Sony.

The discovery raised hopes that the Macs might be able to burn both the DVD-R media Apple has supported and the DVD+R media it has spurned. That's because Sony is unique in the industry in offering drives that write to both rival formats.

However, Apple confirmed that iMacs, even those with Sony DVD burners, can only use DVD-R media. The Mac maker wouldn't say whether the +R media support was disabled in hardware or software.

So why, one might ask, would Apple use the Sony drives only to disable the dual compatibility consumers love? A number of PC makers are said to have coveted the Sony drives during a time when it appeared there might not be enough of the single-format drives available. Hewlett-Packard, one of the strongest backers of the DVD+R format, is said to have considered a move similar to Apple's, but with DVD-R support disabled instead.

[Feb. 24, 2003]