Make of DVD drive in the 2009 iMac (20inch) ?

[Tumbleweed666]

Trying to see how much of a problem I'll have with multiregion discs, seems the matsushita drives are not good and was wondering if maybe they switched to a different vendor for the new iMacs? Otherwise I'm swaying between buying an external drive which can be flashed to no-region (which defeats the purpose of the all-in-one Mac), or buying another windows system, which I really don't want to do, as I had psyched myself up to ditch Windows

 

[MTI]

Aren't all the dual layer Superdrives Pioneer?

 

[Sebby]

If it uses the same as the 24" 2009 iMac, it's an Optiarc (a AD-5670S to be precise).

 

[MacAndy74]

If it uses the same as the 24" 2009 iMac, it's an Optiarc (a AD-5670S to be precise).

Just checked a new 2009 iMac at work the other day - Optiarc, I've found these drives to be most excellent

 

[DesignerOnMac]

Trying to see how much of a problem I'll have with multiregion discs, seems the matsushita drives are not good and was wondering if maybe they switched to a different vendor for the new iMacs? Otherwise I'm swaying between buying an external drive which can be flashed to no-region (which defeats the purpose of the all-in-one Mac), or buying another windows system, which I really don't want to do, as I had psyched myself up to ditch Windows

Do 'About This Mac' and see what DVD drive you have. My 24" iMac 2.8 Extreme, Rev A, has a matsushita drive and I have many, many PAL DVDs of bands I like from Germany and many other EU countries and they play perfectly!

 

[Tumbleweed666]

Do 'About This Mac' and see what DVD drive you have. My 24" iMac 2.8 Extreme, Rev A, has a matsushita drive and I have many, many PAL DVDs of bands I like from Germany and many other EU countries and they play perfectly!

'About This Mac' is not going to work on my Windows PC

The issue AIUI is that the matsushita drives cant be flashed to accept whatever region you want, its not that they dont work on say, region 2, but if you were to put a region 1 (US) disc in it would ask you to change the region to 1. After 5 changes , you'd be stuck with whatever the last region you used. I probably have 70:30 region 2:1 plus a smattering of others as well.

I think I'm going to end up getting a Mac anyway, hoping it comes with a flashable drive and if not then and then either getting another external DVD that can be flashed, or just use my work laptop which is XP and wont have these issues should I need to rip a DVD that the Mac wont.

 

[kurosov]

Here you go.

From my 2009 20"

 

[Tumbleweed666]

Here you go.

From my 2009 20"

Thanks, from googling there isnt region free sw for these drives yet but there does seem to be a lot for older ones so hopefully something will be released.
I am now getting a 24 inch though, was seduced by the screen
(a bit worried it will be too large and I also need to remove the top off my PC desk, but what the heck)

 

[Sebby]

It will seem stupidly large at first, but you'll quickly get used to it.

 

[kurosov]

Thanks, from googling there isnt region free sw for these drives yet but there does seem to be a lot for older ones so hopefully something will be released.
I am now getting a 24 inch though, was seduced by the screen
(a bit worried it will be too large and I also need to remove the top off my PC desk, but what the heck)

Well i had to remove the top of my desk for this one because of the 'chin'.

I would have loved to get a 24" but i am on a tight budget this year and even the 20" was a great upgrade to what i was using.

 

[rpaloalto]

You should think about getting a external DVD drive anyways. If you plan on doing a lot of ripping and burning. This puts stress on the DVD drive. All DVD drives will burn out or fail. Some times sooner than you think. Replacing a DVD drive in a imac is not the simplest of tasks.
You can get a nice external enclosures that has a great pioneer DVD drive.
From OWC for $71.00
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/optical-drives/