CDVDBurn DVD writing addendum
=============================

V1.00, 2005-05-19, Steffen Huber for hubersn Software

Welcome to CDVDBurn. In the true tradition of show releases, this version of
CDVDBurn is neither complete nor as well tested as it should be. However,
care has been taken that the basic functionality works fine. This guide
is intended to help you through the first stages of getting accustomed to
the wonderful new world of DVD writing.

You will probably encounter errors and messages that talk about "CD" when
you have actually written a DVD. These minor errors will be fixed in
future releases, upgrades will be free.

Speaking of upgrading. The philosophy of CDVDBurn development is "iterative
advancement". Early versions are not always perfect, but errors that are
reported are quickly fixed and upgrades are free.

In the future, you will be able to upgrade via the web.
http://www.hubersn-software.com/upgrading.html
The upgrade site itself will be password protected. Login details:
Username: cdvdburn
Password: upgrade

The new upgrader application is not ready yet. Once the first upgrade is
out (watch the hubersn Software website for announcements!), you will be
able to download the upgrader application from the upgrade site.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask:
steffen@hubersn-software.com

IYONIX users: CDVDBurn introduces a new transport technology to drive the
CD and DVD writers inside your IYONIX. Instead of relying on CDFS for
ATAPI access, CDVDBurn now hits ADFS directly. This hopefully results
in higher reliability of the writing process, since the error responses
of the drive are now much more detailed.

The new transport technology announces itself as "IYOIDE" prefix when
choosing your writer instead of the old "ATAPI". You can manually
enable the old transport technology by editing the line inside the
!CDVDBurn.settings file from
scanIyonix=no
to
scanIyonix=yes


Introduction
------------

This version of CDVDBurn introduces DVD writing to RISC OS. Supported media
are DVD+RW, DVD+R and DVD-RW. CDVDBurn only supports "Data DVDs". You can
think of Data DVDs as large CD-ROMs. Every computer equipped with a DVD-ROM
should be able to read the resulting disc (if the medium is compatible of
course).

CDVDBurn does not magically turn your RISC OS machine into a versatile
DVD reading machine. DVDs created outside of RISC OS are likely to not
work with standard CDFS. You'll need to buy CDROMFS to have a good
chance to read them.

Working with CDVDBurn has not changed much from CDBurn. Pick the data
you want, create an image, and write it. You only have to keep in
mind that you now have over 4 GB to fill before starting to write ;-)

Shortcomings of this version
----------------------------

There are a few shortcomings of this version that are likely to affect you
in one or the other way.

- Free capacity of medium is not read correctly (DVD+RW, DVD-RW). Because
  of this, free space checks on the target medium for DVD media has been
  disabled. Please make sure that the image you want to write fits
  onto a standard DVD medium, which has a typical capacity of 4482 MB.

- Medium information sometimes reports funny values for DVD media. Just
  ignore it.

- You can't set the writing speed for DVD media - the writer automatically
  selects the speed optimal for the inserted medium. This is not properly
  reflected in the write dialogues.

- Simulation is not supported for DVD media, but this is not properly
  reflected in the write dialogues.

- Multisession is not supported for DVD media, but this is not properly
  reflected in the write dialogues.

- "On the fly writing" as known from CDBurn no longer exists in this version.
  Since CDBurn never did clever cacheing techniques, the filing system
  performance of your average RISC OS machine was never enough to give
  underrun-free writes. Due to time constraints, the new DVD writing stuff
  has not been integrated properly into the whole writing mechanisms that
  were used for CD media - consequently, "On the fly writing" would not
  have worked with DVD media anyway.

  Instead, you can now do a "Write CD/DVD" which creates the whole image
  before starting the writing operation. You can choose whether to keep
  the image for later usage or whether CDVDBurn should delete it immediately
  after writing. WARNING: CDVDBurn also deletes your image when only
  simulating a CD write!

  Once the DVD writing routines are properly integrated, "On the fly writing"
  will come back - without losing the new "Write CD/DVD" scheme of course!

Best supported writers and systems
----------------------------------

Most of the development work happened with an IYONIX pc and a Lite-On
SOHW-1673S. Consequently, this is the best supported machine/writer
combination.

Risc PC and Omega were also extensively tested, so everything should work
fine there, too. Keep in mind that your Risc PC needs the stronger power
supply (103W), since all DVD writers need excessive amounts of current
at 12V. You can look inside your Risc PC on the power supply sticker - if
it says 12V, 3.6A, everything should be fine, so long as your HD is not
too power hungry. Please note: a power supply that is too weak can lead
to incredible effects during writing which are very hard to track down.

Risc PC users beware: the Lite-On is as far as I know only compatible with
the old RISC OS 3.7 CDFSSoftATAPI driver. This is available from the
RISCOS Ltd. webserver:
http://support.riscos.com/Support/Updates/index.htm

About writable DVDs
-------------------

As you might know, the industry has invented competing writable DVD formats
for reasons unknown to the mere user. There are two "camps": the "+ camp"
(with their formats DVD+R and DVD+RW) and the "DVD Forum camp" (with their
formats DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM). Fortunately for the user, nearly all
currently available DVD writers are

This version of CDVDBurn supports DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD-RW. It is hoped that
DVD-R and the double layer variants are supported in the next upgrade.

In contrast to the CD-R vs. CD-RW situation, every DVD media needs its own
specific writing technique. This also means that it is well possible that
for some writers some of the formats will work and some won't.

Perhaps the most important thing about DVD writing is the choice of media.
Extensive tests have shown that every DVD writer only works well with
a limited selection of DVD media - please consult the DVD writer's manual
to find out which type of media is preferred. During CDVDBurn testing,
the Lite-On has achieved very consistent results with Verbatim DataLifePlus
Media, no matter if DVD+RW, DVD+R or DVD-RW. Using cheap no-name media can
result in errors that are very hard to track down. It is generally a good
idea to buy "slow-burn" media - this has proved to be much more reliable
then the latest and fastest media. The writer automatically sets a lower
writing speed on "slow-burn" media. It is recommended to use no more than
4x speed media in conjunction with the Lite-On drive and CDVDBurn.

The recommendation for slow machines is to use DVD+RW or DVD+R media. These
types of media do not need cunning technology like BURN-Proof to keep
the writing stream uninterrupted - instead, the media is already prepared
with a wobble track so that the drives can easily find where they
interrupted the writing.

Simulation?
-----------

Once there was a time when media was expensive and machines were slow. The
general advise then was: "always simulate the write first". This has
totally changed. In fact, media like DVD+R and DVD+RW don't even support
simulation anymore.

While simulation switches off the write laser, it still stresses the whole
drive mechanism. Therefore, it is likely that simulation will shorten the
life span of your writer. Don't use it.

Multisession?
-------------

In theory, some of the DVD media is able to support multisession operation
comparable to CD technology. However, severe problems were encountered
when trying to read back those multisession DVDs on RISC OS. Consequently,
there is currently no multisession support built into CDVDBurn when using
DVD media. Since you can always use CDs if you insist that this DVD stuff
has far too much space to write in one go, this is not considered a serious
limitation.

Help! My image file has turned into a directory!
------------------------------------------------

Don't panic. You have experienced the seamless CDVDBurn large file technology.
In simple words: since RISC OS limits the size of a file to 2 GB, CDBurn
needs to work around that limitation - I guess you wouldn't be happy if
you could only use less than half of the DVD's capacity!

CDVDBurn splits up files larger than 2 GB into multiple files and puts them
into a directory that has the same name as the former single file. Please
don't remove or rename any file inside such a directory - bad things will
happen.

If you want to write such an image back, you just drag the directory instead
of the file - CDVDBurn will automatically detect that it needs to go
into "large file mode".
