LaCie d2 8X DVD +/- RW Drive

LaCie needs to do a better job of documentation for their Rewritable DVD drive.

PACKAGING
1. The front of box says:
DVD-RW & DVD+RW
8x DVD+-R, 4x DVD+-RW

The side of the box says:
d2 8X DVD +/- RW FW Drive

That's confusing. Especially for someone new to DVDs.

On the LaCie web site it has this info:

DVD speeds (Write, Rewrite, Read) :

DVD+/-R: 8x
DVD-R: Disc-at-Once, Incremental recording, Multi-border recording
DVD+R: Incremental recording
--
DVD+/-RW: 4x
DVD-RW: Restricted Overwriting
DVD+RW: Random recording
--
DVD-ROM: 12x
--

I think I get it that the drive does a speed of 8x when it's writing on a DVD.

What's Incremental Recording?

What does Restricted Overwriting and Random recording mean?

Inside The Box
Inside the box the glossy insert shows the contents. This should include a LaCie Optical User's Manual and a LaCie DVD Utilities CD-ROM.

I only got a Roxio Toast 6 Titanium CD.

After opening and inserting the Roxio Toast 6 Titanium CD I see tat that's where the LaCie documentation is located.

Hmm. The glossy insert needs to be updated.

Installing DVD Drive support
Over on the LaCie website are the most recent LaCie DVD drivers.

Right now, the LaCie DiscRecording Support for Mac OS X 10.3.2 or later (March 22, 2004), is the most recent.

That's a very different description than the insert in the box which calls it LACIE DVD DRIVE PROFILE.

Once you get it installed, you are supposed to see Disc Burning: Vendor Supported in the system profile window. Guess what? Doesn't say that.

It says Apple Supported/Shipped.

Come on guys. Let's update the website to include all this info.

Also, how about a message board?

UPDATE from Roxio:

From: support@lacie.com
Subject: Re: CDDVD information request from Steve Garfield
Date: March 31, 2004 6:26:56 PM EST

The LaCie Discrecording.pkg is the correct file. Apple has supplied us with a new version from the Feb2004 profile.

I'm sorry for any confusion this caused.

UPDATE #2 from Roxio:

From: support@lacie.com
Subject: Re: CDDVD information request from Steve Garfield
Date: March 31, 2004 6:26:57 PM EST

You should have only received the one Toast Titanium CD. We no longer ship the software on three CDs. The one CD includes Toast Titanium for OS 10.2 and newer, Toast Lite for OS 9.1.x, 9.2.x and 10.1.x and the manual for the install of the DVD recorder. Our documentation has not been changed to reflect this.

After installing Toast you will also have a Toast manual in the Toast folder.

I'm sorry for any confusion this caused.

UPDATE #3 from Roxio, RE: Disc Burning: Apple Supported/Shipped:

From: support@lacie.com
Subject: Re: CDDVD information request from Steve Garfield
Date: April 2, 2004 5:09:09 PM EST

Hello,
Yes that looks OK.