DVD writing to become reality on RISC OS - RISC OS News, Software and Information

DVD writing to become reality on RISC OS

Published: 19th Mar 2005, 12:29:52GMT Source: drobe.co.uk
By Chris Williams

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CDBurn upgrade to support DVD+RW, DVD+R and DVD-R

CDBurn is set to gain DVD writing abilities, according to developer Steffen Huber in an announcement today. The popular CD burning application should be updated in time for a DVD writing release at the May Wakefield 2005 show, although the new features will be showcased first today at A.U.T.O., a smaller event held in Germany.

Steffen says he has CDBurn working with LG and AOpen DVD writer drives, adding that the results are "promising", however, "reading the resulting DVDs on the Iyonix is not, but I hope this can be rectified."

It's hoped that CDBurn will support DVD+RW, DVD+R and DVD-R in this order. Each of these represents a DVD disc medium type, with 90% of DVD readers supporting both '+' and '-' types. A singled sided DVD can store 4.7GB of data, opening up a whole new world of backup opportunities to RISC OS. The CDBurn news comes as plans for the successor to DVDs and CDs, so-called Blu-ray Discs, are being considered by computer and media industries.

Calling for beta testers to test drive the new DVD capabilities, Steffen also told CDBurn users earlier this morning: "I have decided that, once the DVD-enabled version is out, this will be the end of the development of the CD-only CDBurn. This has mainly administrative reasons - I need to keep my overheads down, and I don't want to have to keep two code bases in sync.

"The only 'development' for the old CDBurn will be bug fixes and, if reasonably simple to implement, support for new devices if this becomes necessary. So everyone who decides not to upgrade will still be able to use CDBurn in a sensible manner."

An upgrade to the DVD writing version of CDBurn is likely to cost no more than 30 quid, says Steffen. There are as yet no further details on the DVD capable CDBurn, such as the writing speed of the application and layer support. The CDBurn author formed his own company, Hubersn Software, after taking CDBurn back from its publisher, WSS, in May 2004.

Links
Hubersn Software website
Background info on DVDs

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datawave (+1.1) 19/3/05 3:57PM	This is great news for all RISC OS users Finally someone, who thinks to RiscPC users on the first place. CDBurn is a marvellous package to use and with DVD read and write posibilities it opens more possibilities for RiscPC users. Well Done Steffan!
AW 19/3/05 4:32PM	DVD read on the RiscPC?! I thought this was "impossible" (like MP3 creation was said to be)!
hubersn (+1.0) 19/3/05 5:05PM	Reading a DVD is something completely different than playing a Video DVD.
mavhc (+1.0) 19/3/05 5:21PM	2.4x writing ight be possible on a RiscPC: 1385 * 2.4 * 2 = 6648kB/sec. How will it cope with being >2GBs?
hubersn (+1.0) 19/3/05 7:04PM	ISO/Joliet images > 2GB will be split into as many files as needed. Files inside an image with > 2 GB are not possible anyway, since CDBurn only supports ISO/Joliet and not UDF. Writing speed: keep in mind that because of their medium structure DVD+RW (and DVD-RAM and I think DVD+R) does not need a continuous writing process.
Sawadee 19/3/05 11:36PM	*In reply to hubersn:* "Reading a DVD is something completely different than playing a Video DVD" Later last year I only just bought CDBurn reader writer, and have not really used it much and I don't have or really use a DVD Video player either. If RISC OS soon has DVD+RW but it is different than playing a Video DVD, then could you or someone please explain exactly what it does? I do not know much about DVD really, so my only guess is you mean that RISC OS DVD can only read and write DVD images but it cannot play Video? Is this correct? I recall later last year that Iyonixs needs some RISC OS style hardware and system changes to cope with DVD playing. I wonder if this has been done and RISC OS is ready for DVD? With Browsers and DVD coming up, 2005 is looking very promising thank you.
hubersn (+1.1) 19/3/05 11:48PM	The DVD writing capabilities planned for CDBurn will enable you to write Data DVDs. Just think of them as large CD-ROMs. Great for backups and moving large amounts of data between computers. Basically, a Video DVD is also such a Data DVD, but it needs very specific data at very specific positions on the medium - the process to create this specific data at those specific positions is called "mastering". Such mastering capability is not part of the feature set initially planned for the first DVD enabled CDBurn version. Hope this clears it up...
Sawadee 20/3/05 3:21AM	Data DVD I see what you mean, I misunderstood thinking that DVD means Video! I have a Transcend JetFlash portable USB type storage device, but my RISC OS 4 is not yet updated to include USB connection. Maybe this DVD data idea could be the answer for my RO4 and use the JetFlash device when I can afford an Iyonixs with USB later? To change my RO4 CD ROM reader/writer 52X speed with CDBurn to DVD+RW, do I have to change the CD hardware or is it just a software issue? DVD is an area I have not experienced yet, but thanks for your clear explanation.
hzn 20/3/05 12:56PM	Good news indeed - I'm happy to beta test having a DVD R/RW drive at hand. *In reply to mavhc:* You write "2.4x writing might be possible on a RiscPC". I doubt that that speed will be possible on a RiscPC. I did manage to burn CDs on my ex-Risc PC with 12x using a Blitz IDE for the harddisc and an Eesox SCSI for the bruner. When I told Steffen that that worked he was very surprised of the speed my setup managed and first couldn't quite believe it- and that was just 150 x 12 x 12 = 3600 kb/sec! So Sawadee: If you have a CD ROM R/W drive and want to burn DVDs I'm afraid that you will have to get a piece of hardware: A DVD bruning drive.
mfraser 21/3/05 7:29AM	*In reply to hubersn:* "ISO/Joliet images > 2GB will be split into as many files as needed. Files inside an image with > 2 GB are not possible anyway, since CDBurn only supports ISO/Joliet and not UDF." Will UDF writing be supported at some point?
hubersn (+1.1) 21/3/05 10:37AM	It doesn't make sense to try and support UDF writing inside CDBurn - UDF needs a real filingsystem to be a sensible thing. If you keep withing the "generate image, write image" kind of working of CDBurn, you would only have disadvantages using UDF. So it would be a seperate product. However, UDF is a very complicated thing, so unless someone ports the code from another OS, I don't see this being likely to happen. If someone wants to have I shot, I would be happy to provide some insight in how to handle write operations on CD/DVD writers on RISC OS.
yoyojon 21/3/05 9:55PM	Two things missing keep me hesitant about getting e.g. an Iyonix. IF video could not only run but be edited like in a new version of !CineWorks plus being able to write video DVDs. "Dream on...", is it??? Cheers, Yo
TonyStill 21/3/05 10:35PM	*In reply to Yo:* Of course, the more Iyonixes there are out there, the more likely we are to see these things developed. And, in the unlikely event that your buying one does not immediately trigger a flood of new software, you won't regret the performance boost Tony
blahsnr 23/3/05 8:09AM	yoyojon The Iyonix is a great machine if you have the money get one especially if you can make use of one of the special offers. It does sadly lack video editing and viewing (at the moment). The addition of a PCI TV card offers the possibility of video in hardware at least (PCTV cards from Rave). IIRC I hooked up our video recorder to the Iyonix in this way when helping alpha test PCITV although I haven't tried this since. Our solution was to buy a mac mini. I hope be able to get video format conversion utilities up and running on it so I can convert digital camera videos to a format that is at least playable under RISC OS. Getting the videos to the Iyonix is then trivial (via network, CDROM, USB stick).