The Firmware Page

Here we go


Download here

More technical details about this release:

As explained above, Pioneer limits the media you can burn at 8x (and 6x). With rev 1.05 the only media that are allowed by Pioneer to be written at 6x and 8x are the following:


Therefore, the only way to burn other media at 8x is either if the media provides its own 8x strategy, or if we use one of the strategies above.
Extensive testing showed that the best strategy to burn 4x media at 6x and 8x was the FUJIFILM03, and this is the strategy that is being used with this patch.
At least for rev. 1.05, we will not be releasing a patch with a strategy different than Fuji, so live with Fuji or don't!
But, provided you use quality 4x media, you should realise as well as we do that the the Fuji strategy is working pretty well

Another important thing to bear in mind is that 8x burning is ZCLV, which means that the burn actually begins at 6x speed and then, around 650 MB, the drive increases its speed to 8x (after performing a 8x OPC?).
Most of the failures you will get at 8x will happen at the 650 MB OPC, which means that if your disc doesn't get past 650 MB, you get a coaster.
With 6x on the other hand, only one OPC (6x) is performed at the beginning, therefore if it fails, you can reuse the media at a lesser speed because no data has actually be written.

And last but not least, whatever happens to your drive when burning media at higher speed than the one they are supposed to sustain is your OWN problem. It's neither Pioneer's nor mine.
You take a risk, you assume the risk. But if I were you, I REALLY wouldn't try burning 1x or 2x media at 6x or 8x. Only quality 4x ones.

hello mate

regged to say thnx for the firmware

unfortunatly i have upgraded with dvrflash and it said it was succesful but ritek g04 still burn at 4x

i have tried recordnowmax and alcohol 120

any ideas?

thanks for your hard work mate

regards
Mtx

Oh my God
Just what i was waiting for

Keep up the good work - and thx thx thx

reflashed it, uninstalled device from device manager and rescanned hardware and now appears to be working!!

nice one nil m8

good work

Great Job!

Worked flawlessly, just burned Verbatim 4x at 8x with no problems.

Thanks again!

MB1010

Could people who manage to burn non 8x media at 6x or 8x please post the ID of the media (as seen with DVDInfo for instance).
This should give everyone a better idea of which media are working at 8x and which are not.

As far as I'm concerned, RITEKG04 (Arita 4x) and PRINCO (Datawrite Yellow 4x) seem to give good results, with a few dropouts in read speed past 4 GB but nothing too serious.

I am pleased to have been part of the testing of this firmware which works flawlessly with the latest Nero 6 and Record Now Max 4.5 with PXEngine 507. and to make things easy for all you Windows XP users that are a little green I have assembled all the files needed in one simple easy to use package the same way as I did for the 106,105,104 & 103 files and you can find it HERE on my site

Great stuff.
I noticed in the read me - following line :

NOT patched: o 6x and 8x speed for all +R media
o 4x speed for all -RW/+RW media


Any idea when that will come - since all my 8 speeds DVD'S are +R medias ?

Not really... As far as I could see, the +R speed selection is completely different from the -R one, and at the moment I have absolutely no clues how to patch that. I will investigate, but this could take some time.

just burned a movie @ 8x onto a RITEKG04 printable disk with excellent results with recordnow max 4.61 with 507 px engine update

Hey Flashman
Just tried your "All in one package" - but i get a message that my drive does not appear to be a Pioneer (LOL) and its aborting......

Bu the way Nil - dammit (sorry my language) - then im still stuck here with 200 ritek +R 8 speed

Nope....
Actually not.... think i got a little Intel IDe controller problem.
I could flash it with DVRFlash - so - no problemo

My package included DVRFlash! If you got it to work then you finaly read >NIL's instructions Mine are a copy of his instructions with just a little more detail

Aye
So no harm done.
My apologies to you

The most beauty thing is all my high brand -R medias pops along at 8 speed now - sooooooo nice.

I guess i call my retailer tomorrow - and get a deal to return the 200 +R riteks...

Or do any of you have believe thta Pioneer will support them in their own new firmware ?

Awesome Work!! Guess this means the Price on Ritek 4x DVD-R media will jump once again?

Anyhow, Thank U!! I now have 4x Ritek media burning @ 8x!!!
I would love for my DVD-RW media be able to record from 1x to 4x.
Damn Maxell DVD-RW.

Just a final question here from me..
Since im going to call my retailer to change my Ritek + R

Have anyone tried this media : Prodye Video DVD-R 4,7 GB (G) 4x Speed

Or should i go for the safe one - Riteks ??

T.I.A

And still heck of a job guys

Thank you NIL, and anyone else involved in this masterpiece.

Have successfully applied new firmware, and burnt a Princo 4x DVD-R at 8x

Disc is fully readable, has no discernable sector errors.

A KProbe scan done on my Liteon 811S shows a uniform 150 PI across the disc (Max 250) and a PO of 0.2 avg (Max 12)

The Pioneer burns the Princo at 8x better than the liteon does at 4x.


Congratulations.

Prodye uses different media makers. The 4x has often been Princo.

Thanks NIL for your excellent work!

Successful burn Ritek G04 @ 8x of the file 4.38GB. It usually takes 15 ~ 15.30 minutes to burn @ 4X depends on the brand of disc. I try the new firmware, and it only takes 8.24 minutes.

It starts with 5.8x to burn and when it reaches around 15% completed, the write buffer drops to 10% only. I was thinking oh no I am going to get another coaster. But after 5 seconds the write buffer shoot up to 98% and conitnues to burn at 7.8x until the end.

I cannot read the PI/PO lever since I do not own any Liteon drive. But I do not see any image degrade for the video.

My computer spec:

AMD 1700+ no overclocking
ECS K7S5A Pro Version 5.00
512 Samsung DDR400
Wester Digital 80Gb 8Mb Cache
Matrox G200 AGP
Nero 6.3.0.3

Excellent work again and thousand thanks!!!

The following info are obtained from DVDinfopro

Brand:

Ritek G04

Media Information
Region information N/A not a DVD-VIDEO
Media code/Manufacturer ID RITEKG04
Formatted Size Blank
Book Type DVD-R
Media Type DVD-R
Media Id Code Speed 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 8.0x 11080KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 6.0x 8310KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 2.0x 2770KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 1.0x 1385KBps
Write Strategy Speed 4.0x 5540KBps
2x Speed OPC beta 08
2x Speed OPC power 12
2x Write Strategy field 1 11 86 67 80
2x Write Strategy field 2 88 80 00 00 00 00
4x Speed OPC beta 05
4x Speed OPC power 1B
4x Write Strategy field 1 0E 10 08 09
4x Write Strategy field 2 97 06 0D 0B
4x Write Strategy field 3 00 00 00 00
4x Speed OPC beta multi-pulse 04
4x Speed OPC power multi-pulse 1D
4x Write Strategy field 4 18 A8 88 85
4x Write Strategy field 5 89 AC 88 80 00 00
4x Write Strategy field 6 00 00 D0 00 00
Data area starting sector 30000h
Linear Density 0.267um/bit
Track Density 0.74um/track
Number of Layers 1

00000000 00 6C 00 00 01 40 C1 FD 9E D8 52 00 02 76 0E 14 .l...@....R..v..
00000010 88 9A 80 00 03 52 49 54 45 4B 47 00 04 30 34 00 .....RITEKG..04.
00000020 00 00 00 00 05 88 80 00 00 00 01 00 06 08 12 11 ................
00000030 86 67 80 00 07 88 80 00 00 00 00 00 08 05 1B 0E .g..............
00000040 10 08 09 00 09 97 06 0D 0B 80 00 00 0A 00 00 00 ................
00000050 00 00 10 00 0B 04 1D 18 A8 88 85 00 0C 89 AC 88 ................
00000060 80 00 00 00 0D 00 00 D0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00000070 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

Optodisc 4X

Media Information
Region information N/A not a DVD-VIDEO
Media code/Manufacturer ID OPTODISCK001
Formatted Size Blank
Book Type DVD-R
Media Type DVD-R
Media Id Code Speed 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 8.0x 11080KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 6.0x 8310KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 2.0x 2770KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 1.0x 1385KBps
Write Strategy Speed 4.0x 5540KBps
2x Speed OPC beta 0B
2x Speed OPC power 0F
2x Write Strategy field 1 11 86 67 80
2x Write Strategy field 2 88 80 00 00 00 00
4x Speed OPC beta 05
4x Speed OPC power 16
4x Write Strategy field 1 0D 10 0A 09
4x Write Strategy field 2 97 06 0E 0B
4x Write Strategy field 3 C0 00 00 00
4x Speed OPC beta multi-pulse 03
4x Speed OPC power multi-pulse 1B
4x Write Strategy field 4 1D A8 76 A5
4x Write Strategy field 5 A9 99 CC C0 00 00
4x Write Strategy field 6 00 00 D0 00 00
Data area starting sector 30000h
Linear Density 0.267um/bit
Track Density 0.74um/track
Number of Layers 1

00000000 00 6C 00 00 01 40 C1 FD 9E D8 52 00 02 87 0E 13 .l...@....R.....
00000010 87 88 80 00 03 4F 50 54 4F 44 49 00 04 53 43 4B .....OPTODI..SCK
00000020 30 30 31 00 05 88 80 00 00 00 01 00 06 0B 0F 11 001.............
00000030 86 67 80 00 07 88 80 00 00 00 00 00 08 05 16 0D .g..............
00000040 10 0A 09 00 09 97 06 0E 0B 58 88 00 0A C0 00 00 .........X......
00000050 00 00 10 00 0B 03 1B 1D A8 76 A5 00 0C A9 99 CC .........v......
00000060 C0 00 00 00 0D 00 00 D0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00000070 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00000080 00 6C 00 00 01 40 C1 FD 9E D8 52 00 02 87 0E 13 .l...@....R.....

AML

Media Information
Region information N/A not a DVD-VIDEO
Media code/Manufacturer ID AML
Formatted Size Blank
Book Type DVD-R
Media Type DVD-R
Media Id Code Speed Unknown
Available Write Descriptor CLV 8.0x 11080KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 6.0x 8310KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 2.0x 2770KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 1.0x 1385KBps
Write Strategy Speed 4.0x 5540KBps
2x Speed OPC beta 0B
2x Speed OPC power 10
2x Write Strategy field 1 11 87 78 80
2x Write Strategy field 2 88 80 00 00 00 00
4x Speed OPC beta 06
4x Speed OPC power 17
4x Write Strategy field 1 0D 0F 0B 0B
4x Write Strategy field 2 98 08 0F 0B
4x Write Strategy field 3 00 00 00 00
4x Speed OPC beta multi-pulse 06
4x Speed OPC power multi-pulse 1C
4x Write Strategy field 4 13 A8 88 65
4x Write Strategy field 5 98 9A 88 80 00 00
4x Write Strategy field 6 00 00 D0 00 00
Data area starting sector 30000h
Linear Density 0.267um/bit
Track Density 0.74um/track
Number of Layers 1


00000000 00 6C 00 00 01 40 C1 FD 9E D8 52 00 02 87 0E 15 .l...@....R.....
00000010 98 9A 90 00 03 41 4D 4C 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 .....AML........
00000020 00 00 00 00 05 CC C0 00 00 00 01 00 06 0B 10 11 ................
00000030 87 78 80 00 07 88 80 00 00 00 00 00 08 06 17 0D .x..............
00000040 0F 0B 0B 00 09 98 08 0F 0B 00 00 00 0A 00 00 00 ................
00000050 00 00 10 00 0B 06 1C 13 A8 88 65 00 0C 98 9A 88 ..........e.....
00000060 80 00 00 00 0D 00 00 D0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00000070 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

Thanks for the reports everyone. Glad to see it works as well for me and Flash as it works for you.


That's the price you pay for going with a dissident format
More seriously, I will try to see what I can do for +R media. At least, I hope to be able to remove restrictions on 8x +R media so that the Pioneer burns them at 8x too, but this could take a while.


Like 8x for +R media, that's more or less planned. But then again, I don't know when.



THIS is the 6x -> 8x ZCLV step I've been talking about.
This is where the drive increases its speed from 6x to 8x (15% ~ 650MB), so there is a pause, and you see the write buffer drop (kind of scary the first time you try).
This is also the crucial point where you usually find out whether your media will burn at 8x or if you will get a coaster.

Sorry for the stupid question, but, if I have any problem, can I flash the drive back to the original firm ?

Thanks for the geat job NIL & Flash.

Yes! the files are on my site use them with DVRFlash

Thanks a lot.