CDVDBurn 3 coming soon

After a long wait (last beta sent out to existing customers in 2007…during the last few years, only test versions were supplied), I am finally preparing a new release of CDVDBurn, which I have decided to call “CDVDBurn 3” – it is a major upgrade (and will be a chargeable one), but it is not revolutionary enough to require a completely new name :-)

To keep all (prospective) customers better informed, I have also launched the new hubersn Software Blog where you can currently read about the great CDVDBurn 3 plan. When, what, how much. More information – especially about the new features – will follow soon.

Ordering of CDVDBurn is currently suspended, the new price will be lower than the old one (at least for the full version, upgrade will likely be 25 UKP), so I don’t want anyone to accidentially pay a higher price than necessary.

I did try to buy the previous version but didn’t get a response. At the moment I build an ISO on my RPC using CDBurn then shoot it across to the Mac for burning. Be nice to do it all in one at speed on the BB. Hopefully be OK with LG drives. Something to look forward to.

I am currently testing with two LG drives that – up to now – work fine with the media types I have tested. Both are Blu-Ray writers, so it will still need to be tested if your specific drive will work. The good thing with LG (or now “Hitachi-LG”) is that they are really doing their own drives and not just relabel other companies hardware.

Once CDVDBurn 3 is released, I will arrange a special testing scheme for users with unknown drives, so we can make absolutely sure that it works OK with your drive. Could you check the output of *devices which drive it is precisely?

The only drives that make problems at the moment are Pioneer and their OEMs like Verbatim. Not sure if it is worth the time to dig deeper there. The problems start with CDFS, and do not stop when the drives seem to be blocking the USB bus for a long time.

With the latest Testversion the LG BR (SATA, Ti) and two different LG Slimline DVD Writer are working via SATA (Ti) and USB2SATA adapter (MX6 +Ti).

It is always dangerous to say “the drive is working” :-)

Things I check before I label a drive as “good for normal user usage, further investigation to perfect it is worth it”:

• CDFS is happy reading data CDs and DVDs
• Data CD-R and CD-RW can be written
• Audio CD-R and CD-RW can be written in both Track-at-once and Disc-at-once mode
• CD-RW and DVD-RW can be erased (“blanked”)
• DVD+RW and DVD-RAM can be written

Currently working on adding “DVD+R and DVD-RW can be written” to this list, hopefully the code will be alright tonight. DVD-R is still a mystery…

For BD drives, add

• CDFS is happy reading BDs
• BD-R and BD-RE can be written

All of this needs to be performed reliably, i.e. no strange unexplainable errors logged during writing. And all of these need to be tested and work OK on ARMX6, Titanium and Pi 4. If it works on them, experience says that it will work everywhere else, too (short of low-level hardware incompatibilities).

Perhaps I should post earlier in the day. The drive I set aside for the Beagleboard is in fact a LiteOn Slimtype eBAU108. The drive I was thinking of is an LG HL-DT-ST GH24NSB0 but that will probably remain glued to my Mac as I mounted it in a Firewire/USB enclosure from a dead lightscribe drive and it’s used for M-Disc burning.

I’d probably be content to buy another drive to match the software if necessary.

I’ve got a Samsung portable Blu-ray writer (SE-506), if you need any testing with that.

For those still interested in that optical drive stuff, I have posted a rundown of the new features in CDVDBurn 3:
https://blog.hubersn-software.com/2020/10/cdvdburn-3-features/

Currently testing on both LG and Samsung drives (so thanks for the offer, Druck, but currently not needed). Looks good so far, only a few niggles with the USB-SATA-adapter stuff and RISC OS’ USB implementation when the drive is busy.

I finally cracked a 15-year-old problem – the inability of CDVDBurn to write DVD-R.

https://blog.hubersn-software.com/2020/11/developing-cdvdburn-3-finally-success/

finally cracked a 15-year-old problem – the inability of CDVDBurn to write DVD-R

Congratulations, Steffen! Bravo!

I’ve still got a box of those, from when I had a SD digital video recorder with 80GB HD and a DVR-R writer.

One of the major applications of optical storage is “long-term backup, readable on all past and future OSes and many devices”. It is an additional dimension of security – not the “magnetic storage with insane package density” type of traditional harddiscs or the “you don’t know when it will die” type of flash memory of USB sticks and SD cards.

There is optical media out there that should outlast nearly every alternative available to the mere user: “Archival Grade” discs and the “M-Disc”. Both types are only available as DVD-R, so being able to write that type of medium was always very important to me.

And there are drives out there that read DVD-R a lot better than DVD+R (DVD players, DVD-ROMs), so now (or better: soon) you can choose.

This is sometimes a forum where funny remarks are made:

Could you point me to a reliable source of this statement or study ? I simpy point to a system with optical media: the Doomesday system…

If you count books printed on acid-free paper as optical media, I think it’s probably an accurate statement.

Note that he does specify archival grade discs.

Regular domestic grade DVD-R, not so much, but better than CD-R! Some are okay, some are starting to peel, one fell apart in the drive when it spun up to full speed (and wasn’t that a mess of tiny bits of shiny to clean up!). My recorded DVDs haven’t failed…yet.

The benefit of DVD, on the other hand, is that it is read only (once written). So much less chance of the host computer screwing up the filesystem. That’s always a danger with FAT devices that mount as read/write.

Best approach, multiple backups on multiple media. Then something ought to survive long enough to be copied again.

Here’s a little something I wrote for Learned Publishing on this subject, 23 years ago…nothing has really changed in the interim…nor is likely to… http://clive.semmens.org.uk/Opinion/ElecArchiv.html

Yes I count books as optical media ;-). Also real film and microfiche.

Read only is indeed a better argument on which I agree. But lets see what is left of this time in say about 100 year or even 50 years.

Don’t get me wrong it is good that we can also write DVD now…

This is sometimes a forum where funny remarks are made:

Indeed, we have a long tradition of being funny here, not least because we all try to use such a funny OS.

There is optical media out there that should outlast nearly every alternative available to the mere user

Could you point me to a reliable source of this statement or study ?

Wikipedia cites a few: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC

Of course, accelerated ageing tests are not 100% reliable – only if you really try to read back your valuable data a few decades later, you will eventually find out. But the physical properties, the various physical and logical layers of error detection and correction, the well-defined logcal format, the myriads of drives available for reading, the possibility to scan media for quality degradation – all those things speak in favour of my statement.

From personal experience, I can say that the failure rate of optical media is a lot lower compared to harddiscs, SSDs and flash memory like USB sticks and memory cards. Most importantly because the medium is separate from the electronics that read it. The first CD-Rs I wrote with CDBurn are still readable. On my Blu-Ray writer I bought recently. Try the same with Flopticals, ZIP media, SCSI harddrives, Phase-Change media, streamer tape, MO discs…

Please note that I have re-added an important part of my statement which your quote left out. Obviously, there are professional archives that have access to better technology and very good controlled storage conditions.

I simpy point to a system with optical media: the Doomesday system…

The Domesday system was based on Laserdisc, which is now mainly famous for its unreliability for long-term storage. What is more, a custom storage format with a customized drive to read was used, of which there were very few.

So compared to optical storage like CD-R, DVD-R or BD-R with archival-optimized media, it was a really lousy solution. But long-term storage wasn’t its aim at all, so that’s forgivable. If you are at the cutting edge of storage technology, it is very unlikely that you happen to also hit the reliability and durability sweet spot.

Given that the original Doomsday book is still readable, long-levity should have been a consideration.

But that’s the way things are going; plenty of WW2 aircraft still flying, anything from the Vulcan onwards grounded due to complexity. Any F1 car up to the late 80s can be jumped in and raced around a track no problems, anything later with a complex ECU needs the original team and a truck load of engineers to get it out of the pits.

Pronounced Dooms Day, spelt Domesday…and yes, the original one is a great example of the longevity of optical media…

anything from the Vulcan onwards grounded due to complexity.

Sometimes gets a bit noisy in the garden¹ given our proximity to the Air Museum

This might, possibly, belong over in Aldershot.

¹ Or inside when you get a Vampire straight overhead.

Right next to Aldershot is Farnborough, with its famous airshow. Never been inside, but have watched from the side, such as the Antonov An-225 which didn’t so much take off as simply fail to follow the curvature of the Earth…

Never been inside, but have watched from the side, such as the Antonov An-225 which didn’t so much take off as simply fail to follow the curvature of the Earth…

As opposed to the Tupolev Tu-144 which was demonstrably familiar with the force of gravity. Rumoured¹ to be produced from a ‘borrowed’ copy of one of the early Concorde designs.

¹ I vaguely recall hearing a voice-over for the Paris demonstration where they said they felt it might have been done from a copy of one of a number of Concorde designs, which finished with the words “Oh, that version”.

of one of the early Concorde designs.

Way off topic, so last post on this. From a person who made test equipment for Concorde – the Russian activity was known right at the beginning, so “apparently” they had field techs go out and smear strawberry jam with bits of grated chewing gum over the tyre marks from landing, so muck up attempts to derive what formulation of rubber was able to withstand the landings.

I say “apparently” in quotes because the man was a complete deadpan snarker, to the point of being rude to a minor ranking royal once and they didn’t even realise that he was pretty much saying get lost idiot.
So, it could be true, or…

More on topic, what’s the programmatic difference between the – and + formats? I know the earlier – uses some sort of tracking to locate the laser, while the later + uses wobble (and is more accurate for it), but I guess the obvious question is why writing data to disc isn’t a high(ish) level operation? From the description, it sounds like some of this stuff gets pretty low level, hence the wait for the -R support.

Whatever, I take my hat off to you for making it through all six versions of the spec and getting it working.