i sent a mail to customere support asking the following

but thought might post it here aswell, mebbe one of u knows whats causes this

Do the media have the same MID code? Philips uses both 4x DVD+R media with MID code "RICOHJPNR01" and "CMC MAG.F01". I think the DVDRW416N is a rebadged ND-1100A and older NEC ND-1100A firmwares do not have the CMC MID code included and will therefore only burn them @2.4x.
In that case you can flash it with a HP dvd300n 3.10 firmware which you'll find here if you don't want to wait for Philips' (NEC's) firmware update.

I too have a Philips dvd416n burner. Updated the firmware with this one: HP DVDwriter300 and everything went ok.
I was able to burn DVDs at 4x speed!!!
So i decided to try more: update to a NEC ND1300a!!!
Downloaded this firmware and updated my old one.
Now i can burn +R and -R (!!!) DVDs at 4x speed!!!

THX TO ALL THE STAFF OF ETNA's DVD!!!!!!
You can find them here
I downloaded flashtool and firmwares here

Do you mean you make from the Philips +R a drive who supports now +R and -R ???

How can I see what types of writers are compatible with mine?
I have the Philips DRW 824.

Before i had the 1008 BTC but the drive caused me a lot of headache. After i connected the BTC drive the system hang every now and then. When I opened the drive and closed it, it already caused a frozen system. Even another cd writer, connected on another IDE port caused the system to freeze after using it.
When I removed the BTC drive it was working again like normal.
Now i have the philips and all works great. I just wanted to have the +R and -R function...

Hello all, I flashed my DVDRW416N with the firmware that giumauro suggested and, now I to can burn DVD-R's thanks for that.. one thing tho' has anyone still got their backup of the DVDRW416N as I have gone and lost mine

Please if you have please could ya let me have a copy

One strange side effect I have tho, and that the DVD-R's I burn I can not read??? but my Standalone DVD player can and so can the Wife's DVD reader, has anyone else had this problem. I can read DVD-R's burnt on my friends burner tho... and he uses the same media as me?? any ideas??

I flashed my DVDRW416N with the firmware 1.H1 7 (1.43) I downloaded from http://etna.rpc1.org/nec/index.html. Download and flashing was successful from the technical point of view - but my problem that I can burn most of the DVD+R brands with 2.4 is not solved
Nero recognizes the former Philips drive as a NEC ND1100a.
On the NEC page I found a pretty new firmware (dated April 2004) which shall solve problems with new DVD media. Unfortunately NEC does not offer a bin file but an *.exe running under Windows.
This flashing program from NEC does not accept the Philips 416N with the NEC firmware mentioned above.
Does anybody have the same probs? Is there a known solution?
Does anybody have the newest NEC firmware as *.bin?

You mean 1.A3? In that case I uploaded it here.

Yes I mean the 1.A3 file but I need it as a binary.
The zip file nec offers on this page

http://www.necd.de/softwareoverview2.php/id/557

contains a Windows exe. When I run this file it does not recognize my Philips 416N - also not when I installed the hacked NEC firmware from the ETNA page before.
So what I am looking for is that the owner of a orignal NEC ND1100a flashes his DVD writer with the 1.A3 from NEC using the Windows exe provided by NEC.
Than he uses the flash tool offered on http://etna.rpc1.org/nec/index.html and stores this new firmware in a bin file i.e 1A3.bin.
I fear this will be the only approch to get this new firmware on my Philips drive.

By the way I tried to open the link where you planned to upload the 1A3 but obviously the server was down.

It would be great if you could provide the bin file of the 1A3. The Philips guys still have not responded to my email :-(

Why don't you flash your drive with HP DVDwriter300 firmware??? It is really good and lets you burn at 4x on a lot of +R DVDs!!!

HP only offers a Windows flasher on its WEB page.
This windows flasher accepts original HP devices only.
It would be helpful if anybody could provide the current HP or NEC firmware as a binary file.
Thanks in advance

The file I uploaded is in .bin format.
BTW for NEC's windows flashers it's easy to extract the firmware as it's the last 634888 bytes in the .exe. For HP flashers you can simply check your temp folder when it complains that you don't have the correct drive and you'll find the .bin

If you read my first post in this tread... There are all the links you need!!!!

I extracted the last 634888 bytes from the NEC exe using a hex editor. Stored it as a bin and flashed my Philips 416N. It works perfect. Many thanks for this valuable hint

I'm seeing varied reports on the DVDRW416N to Nec 1100A to Nec 1300A -- some people say it works fine, others say they have problems reading the DVD-R's they burned, is there any more information?

I own a 416N and flashed it to NEC1300A. I burned a DVD-R as well as a DVD-RW, both with 2.4x speeed
My Yamaha 540 payer can read both DVDs without any problems.

I can burn DVD-R of nearly all types, and my standalone Phillips DVD player reads them great, however as pointed out in other threads, I can not read them in my Flashed NEC1300A

See this thread:

http://forum.firmware-flash.com/viewtopic.php?t=25773

Philps maybe stop DVD+R ("RICOHJPNR01) ,now found as "RITEK R02"

And, can you read now DVD- ??

I remember i was able to read DVD-. I can't help you more 'cause i upgraded my burner with a new NEC3540a...