W2V Optical Drive

Well I can now confirm with 100% certainty that the optical drive included with the German version of the W2V (and I think quite a few other versions) IS double layer. My drive happily burned around 7.2gigs worth of data to a DL DVD earlier tonight. I've got the Mat****a UJ-845S drive in my computer so I suspect all machines with this drive will be DL also.

I hope this helps and if you have any questions let me know and I'll do my best to answer them.

Phil
W2Vc-U005P

 

Phil,

Just incase you didn't notice my W2 post in the sticky, the US model we recieved has the UJ-845c 8x Dual Layer DVD Slot Load Drive. Thanks for burning a disc for us!

 

Yeah, I did notice that. If you ever get them I'm sure that will be great ;-) Just kidding. Is the change in model from 845s to 845c just a firmware upgrade? So if Panasonic ever got off their bums and released a firmware upgrade could my drive also burn at 8X? Is there any way to extract firmware from a drive?

Phil
W2Vc-U005P

 

Phil, I also have the 845S. The drive should write to DL DVD only with a speed of 2.4x. No way to get a better speed with other drivers because that's the max on this one.

You can see the specs here

 

2.4x Dual Layer is what ALL of the 8x DL drives burn..... because they do so much the way all those drives have always been labeled is as such (fastested speed for dvd) (most advanced format) ......... It does 8x with the +/-R's ...... but 2.4x for the DL..... that's standard.......


On a lot of desktop pioneer desktop drives... the S always stood for "slot load" ..... but our drives are panasonic and ours it's a "c" and it's certainly a slot load....

Other times I've seen on pioneer notebook drives ... an "AS" and that I was told was Asus' own part number with pioneer to distingush that it was an Asus drive.

 

So it sounds like we've all got the same drive then. I guess what I was wondering was if in this case the difference between the C and the S was only in the firmware or if there was a physical difference too.

Phil
W2Vc-U005P

 

No, physically all UJ-845's are 8x slot loads from what I can gather..... I doubt "c" and "s" are actually different firmwares either..... if anything it could be a region setting or something like that.

 

Ah, thanks for that. I'm just hoping I can get a firmware upgrade for this drive so I can convert it to RPC-1. It's a pain the in neck ony having a limited number of changes because half my DVD's are from Australia and half are from Europe.

Phil
W2Vc-U005P

 

There is software for that, you know............

 

Just throwing a curveball here... you guys think the W2V slot drive will fit in a W3V?... Sorry if its been asked before..

 

I think it'll be a good idea to close this thread as well... all W2 related information should go into the sticky at the top of the forum....... there' no less than 5 threads in the last couples days dedicated to the W2 and I think most people would benefit from having all that information in one place.

All notebook 12.7mm drives are the same size...... they'll all "fit"....... where they differ is attachment points and faceplates...... basically the attachment points are easy to match if you take the attached pieces off of your current w3 drive and put it on say this slot drive..... so your screw holes or clips will match up and it'll physically say in place. The faceplate is another issue....... technically all panasonic drives have the same faceplate attachments and ejection button placement.... I'm not 100% sure if that's true on the slot drive. What you'd have to do if you wanted to match your W3 is take the faceplate off your W3 and figure out where the slot has to go....... if you have machining capabilities, great....... but if you have to take a dremel and cut the slot by hand, then be careful.

I took a toshiba faceplate and mounted it on a slot load pioneer last year for an M6 of mine....... it was a pain...... With the panasonics if the attachment points and the eject button matchs up then that's half the battle.... really the slot is easy if you take your time.