Pioneer DVR-A04 and PS2 DVD burning questions/faq

prime · Jul 26, 2002

Hi guys, I just bought a Pioneer DVR-A04 and have a few questions regarding backing up original PS2 DVD games.
(To make things easier to follow, it would be best when addressing a point/question in this post to number which point/question you are responding to)
Assume that whomever is playing these DVD-R's has a mod chip that can play DVD- R's like the Messiah/Magic 2 mod.

=========================

1) (point)
OK so from what I have read so far in the forums, apparently there are no problems copying original DVD games for the PS2. What this means is that for me and you, we can just backup our own DVD games without having to get them from the released groups on the net.
For those who are so inclined, this also means that they can go to the local Blockbuster and backup a rented PS2 DVD game, although that would not be legal if they don't own the game.

2) (question)
Are there any dual layered (DVD9) games out currently? Just wondering since we cannot back them up with this current Pioneer Drive since it can on write to 4.7 GB media

3) (question)
What is the best program to backup original DVD-R games with on this Pioneer drive (assume that the owner of the drive would be willing to buy any reasonably priced [under $200 US] mastering software?

CloneCD? Nero? DiscJuggler? Primo? Prassi? or some other program?

If there are more than a few programs that can do a perfect job, please list the one's that are well known to be up to snuff.

4) (question)

As long as I have some good media (like some of the one's I mention in point#5), is it fine to write games at a 2X speed or should I always write games at a 1X speed in order to maximize compatibility and minimize load times?

5) (question and point)

OK so far I have found out that the following media is reputed to work really well with this Pioneer drive and PS2's (they can all write at 2X as well):
Panasonic, Maxell, Pioneer, TDK, and Apple Media.

Imation and Verbatim media might work good, although we haven't had enough positive referrels yet and Pioneer does not officially lis them on their site.

So what other DVD-R media is seen as working perfectly with this drive and PS2's (one's whose lasers are calibrated well that is) at a 2X recording spped? Can we include Imation and Verbatim in the mix?
=========================

Thanks guys.

po

Mr Dude · Jul 26, 2002

I have managed to copy everything pefect with nero 5.5.9.0 using datasafe generation 3 dvd-r costing 89 pence each. I just done metal gear solid 2 last night. I used prassi and nero to see if there was a difference.
Ok i'm using a neo 2.2 chip just now.
When booting the prassi copy you need to put in a dvd with a bigger toc or the same as mgs (4.3 gig) and instead of hitting x to load the game when you do the disc swap i had to hit the 0 button instead then go and hit x afterwards.
When booting with the nero copy the boot sequence was the same except that i never had to hit 0 first i just had to hit the x on the disc swap. (using ar2)
In my opinion nero gave a better copy. The discs i use only let you do a 1x copy but for 89 pence i'm not complaining.

ABCMan · Jul 26, 2002

i think its all been covered above, but here goes

1) yes most stuff copies like piss even from blockbuster (there are 2) at present that need a patch (except the ea boot stuff)
3) nero or discjuggler 4 both work fine, for some reason prasi is better with xbox stuff
4) & 5) good media is subjective, i find that tdk or verbatim are the best for 2x writing, for one speed i would highly reccomment vivastar branded discs or neo technologies branded discs, they both work almost perfectly, try to avoid the cheepo dscs as you tend to find that bigger games dont work later into the game (discs like bulkpaq are fine upto about 2gb but beyond that you are taking a risk), decent media can be written at 2x with no troubles and will playback fine

Hope that helps

ABCMan

Boondi · Jul 27, 2002

This is all great new. As soon as my wife aproves my expendature account for next month I'll be getting an AO4 Pioneer DVD burner. My question is where can I get reliable media at a resonable price. I'm in Australia and out disc are about $7.00-$15.00 at the moment. Thats about 3-6US and about 2-3 pounds. I'm willing to import as I do so for my chips. But if I get stung with import duties it brings up the price. The best I've seen is from playstationmods.com who have Neo discs for $1.95 pound.
Any help would be good

prime · Jul 27, 2002

thanks for the info guys!!!

Just curious, where would you say the best site on the net is for picking up patches for PS2 iso's?
As for the swap trick, I have a messiah chip so don' t have to worry about the toc size limitations the neo 2.2 and others has.

thanks for the info ABCMan on the media.
I geuss I'll stick with "All branded media from Panasonic, Maxell, Pioneer, TDK and Verbatim and Apple Media" so as to avoid any issues later on into the game. What's a few extra bucks when you can avoid any potential risk.
I am surprised so many programs work well with backing up PS2 dvd games. This reminds me more of backing up ps games then pc games, since there is no real copy protection (or complications) you have to worry about as long as you have either the messiah or magic chip.

Can't wait to get started, thanks guys!

ABCMan said:
i think its all been covered above, but here goes

1) yes most stuff copies like piss even from blockbuster (there are 2) at present that need a patch (except the ea boot stuff)
3) nero or discjuggler 4 both work fine, for some reason prasi is better with xbox stuff
4) & 5) good media is subjective, i find that tdk or verbatim are the best for 2x writing, for one speed i would highly reccomment vivastar branded discs or neo technologies branded discs, they both work almost perfectly, try to avoid the cheepo dscs as you tend to find that bigger games dont work later into the game (discs like bulkpaq are fine upto about 2gb but beyond that you are taking a risk), decent media can be written at 2x with no troubles and will playback fine

ABCMan

ABCMan · Jul 29, 2002

prime said:
thanks for the info guys!!!

Just curious, where would you say the best site on the net is for picking up patches for PS2 iso's?
As for the swap trick, I have a messiah chip so don' t have to worry about the toc size limitations the neo 2.2 and others has.

thanks for the info ABCMan on the media.
I geuss I'll stick with "All branded media from Panasonic, Maxell, Pioneer, TDK and Verbatim and Apple Media" so as to avoid any issues later on into the game. What's a few extra bucks when you can avoid any potential risk.
I am surprised so many programs work well with backing up PS2 dvd games. This reminds me more of backing up ps games then pc games, since there is no real copy protection (or complications) you have to worry about as long as you have either the messiah or magic chip.

Can't wait to get started, thanks guys!

1) ah, the messiah

the pirates choice (its easier to fit than the neo 4) sadly you will have a few little problems then

anything that uses "fade" protection wont work properly (it'll fade) even the dvd rips, but do be aware that not every game that says fade on the packing realy has the fade protections.

2) i still recommend you add to your list neo and vivastar branded media (not vivastar unbranded however) they are both under £2 each and both give superb results across several platforms

(only one speed, but quite a cost saving if you are only backing up a few games (how many can you rent from blockbuster at one time?

)

ABCMan · Jul 29, 2002

oh dear i forgot this

htp://ww.megagames.com/ps2/ps2_patches.shtml

go get your patches

prime · Jul 29, 2002

ABCMan said:
oh dear i forgot this

htp://ww.megagames.com/ps2/ps2_patches.shtml

go get your patches

Oh, thanks for the patch links!

I take it the Magic 2 has same problem with fade protection as Messiah (Since they are rumoured to be the same chip reverse enginered by another lamo company?)

Also, will the patches take care of the fade effect problem?

Weird I read about a mod chip faqs and stuff and this is the first I heard of the 'fade' effect being symptomatic of the mod chip. Everything I read previously said it was symptomatic of inferior dvdr media. Are you sure about your point on the fade stuff?

Thanks

po

ABCMan · Jul 29, 2002

try playing wc snooker, even the original will "fade" if you have a messiah installed (trust me i have one in one of my ps2's) works fine on the neo 4 though

best solution is to "dual fit" a neo 4 and an origa chip in the same machine,hair raising to do, but direct boot of all games, multi region dvd, macro free, green screen free its the dogs bollocks

prime · Jul 30, 2002

Damn, and I thought the Messiah was the holy grail of modchips, that had no flaws (other than price).
Those faqs I read left out the important information on fade.

The faqs I have read at Isonews and other places makes no mention of the fade support doh

OK I looked at this chart:
h**p://www.ps2modchips.com/charts/charts.php

is the combo you are referring to as the:
-Neo4 / Neo 4.1 or Neo 4.5 or neo4R?
-& OrigaChip V1.0 USA

While the Origa works fine on a V4/V5 PS2 console (the one's they seem to sell around my place) none of the Neo 4x seem to work on a v5 console. Hmm, too bad as your setup sounds awesome sinceu you can "direct boot all games" so no swapping and gameshark use.

Soldering wouldn't be a problem, we got an expert in the neighbourhood who does the stuff for a living and does these things for very reasonable prices.

Thanks

po

ABCMan said:
try playing wc snooker, even the original will "fade" if you have a messiah installed (trust me i have one in one of my ps2's) works fine on the neo 4 though

best solution is to "dual fit" a neo 4 and an origa chip in the same machine,hair raising to do, but direct boot of all games, multi region dvd, macro free, green screen free its the dogs bollocks

No direct liks please,I edited it the way it should be...by Woody

ABCMan · Jul 30, 2002

prime said:
is the combo you are referring to as the:
-Neo4 / Neo 4.1 or Neo 4.5 or neo4R?
-& OrigaChip V1.0 USA

my neo4 + origa machine is a v3 PAL unit with a standard pal neo 4 and pal origa v1.1 (i think, it was a long time ago

) my others are pal v3 with messiah/pheonix and jap v1500 with jap origa 1.3(again i think).

the holy grail was the dual fit combo, but i cant even find the wiring diagrams for it now, messiah was good for most games (except fade) but still required extra stuff for dvd movie watching (which was included in the neo)

i anyone finds a site with the dual fit install pics or details pleasse post a link as i still have some spares kicking around that mates could use if we can remember how to do them (and before you say, my ps2 with the dual fit is built into a cabinet so removing it to check the wiring is a job too far

)

prime · Jul 31, 2002

Simpsons Quote:

"Hey Fatty, I got a song for you, it's called a fridge too far"
Your last line reminded me of that.

Ah well, for those people who aren't best friends with an expert modder, it's best to probably just get a magic2/messiah (if your system isn't already modded), and by the time fade protection does become a serious problem, they'll probably have a good new ps2 mod chip out anyways.

Any decent modder will know how to remove the messiah. It's only 13 wires anyways.
Damn, I can't wait to play winning eleven!

po

ABCMan said:
i anyone finds a site with the dual fit install pics or details pleasse post a link as i still have some spares kicking around that mates could use if we can remember how to do them (and before you say, my ps2 with the dual fit is built into a cabinet so removing it to check the wiring is a job too far )

ABCMan · Jul 31, 2002

errrr..... messiah is 25-29 wires (depending on version) neo 4 is 44 wires, origa is 16 wires & neo 2 is 8 wires.

even the crap quality "blue" messiah chips need 25 wires (if you luck out and get one that works) but try to avoid them like the plague, they are a realy low quality copy of gary's original messiah chip.

dark · Jul 31, 2002

I have a magic 2 it is a messiah clone it works fine it was 23 wires and i installed it myself

ABCMan · Jul 31, 2002

dark said:
I have a magic 2 it is a messiah clone it works fine it was 23 wires and i installed it myself

oh well, i'll be honest, i've not come across the magic 2 chip myself so i wasnt sure, if they managed to chop a few wires out, then so much the better, but i dont think they could get the messiah code to run with the 13 wires stated earlier (not on the ps2 anyway), it would require a total rewrite which would effectively be a whole new chip and because of various lawsuits that would not be allowed from the original team at present (but depending on the situation i believe that channel technology may consider setting up in the land down under if the law is clarified down there, then things may happen, who knows?

ABCMan · Aug 2, 2002

see my new thread for details of a new "final" solution modchip coming soon

prime · Aug 3, 2002

oh well, i'll be honest, i've not come across the magic 2 chip myself [/B][/QUOTE]

that's because ABCman's a Pal user, and he had access to the Messiah along time ago?

The ill-informed North American users (like us Canadians) were stupidly waiting for the Messiah to be released here, when the Magic 2 chip has been available here for a few weeks and it does EVERYTHING the messiah does, and is in fact a clone of it.

prime · Aug 3, 2002

ABCMan said:
see my new thread for details of a new "final" solution modchip coming soon

final solution? sounds very nefarious.

Anyways, I responded to your post with a reply in the other thread.
Again, thanks for all the info abcman.

ABCMan · Aug 4, 2002

thats why i used the quote marks to seperate it from the final solution for the ps2 (which is being worked on also

)