Re: [Dvdrtools-users] DVD+R/+RW support

[Volker Kuhlmann]

Hi Bryan,

Thanks much for your more detailed performance information! I've been
with DVDs for about 2 years and therefore seem to have missed out on
much of your fun ;)

Unfortunately DVD-RAM doesn't have any sort of profile in the market
which is worth mentioning, and I know nothing about it nor how to use it
under Linux. And darn the media is expensive (and hard to get, most
shops don't even know what I'm talking about).

> "2004 or later" is the key phrase.

But we now have 2005. Substandard performance in 2003 and prior surely
isn't that much of an issue when devising backup strategies now?

> I would *never* use DVD+RW or DVD-RW for backup.
> MO's error-rate is piss-poor, 1 per GB.
> Unless you verify in software, you could be putting bogus data bit down 
> every GB.

Of course, any organised person verifies burnt disks after burning if
they're meant for the keeping, and I don't see a difference there
between +-R(W) or -RAM. I have only once had a verify failure - the
DVD+RW had a finger print near the outer edge. I wiped it off, and could
have reburnt the last 500MB with growisofs (cdrecord dvd addons or
cdrecord-prodvd wouldn't allow to do this), but I was lazy and just
reburnt the lot. No more errors, and I always use md5sum on the whole
filesystem image.

> And at 100-1,000 re-writes, anything short of UDF kills the disc rather 
> quickly.

Actually, I mostly use ext2. :)

> DVD-RAM is the absolute best for rewritable backup.

Unless you always burn whole disk images. Unfortunately udf is of
practically unusable performance on Linux, so file-based random access
to DVD is a dream for the future, DVD-RAM or otherwise.

> I have a 4 year-old Matsushita 3rd-Gen DVD-RAM/R that still does both 
> quite well with 4x DVD-R media.

My Pioneer A106 still does very well with 4x media too. Pity it's not
doing 8x media, not even at 4x, not even properly at 1x (tested with -R
only though, not +R), pity Pioneer isn't interested in firmware updates,
and pity 4x media is disappearing from the market in favour of 8x media.
A106 = becoming expensive paperweight, and I bought it less than 1.5y
ago. I'm less than impressed.

> But I'm used to this kind of "you must work for the DVD Consortium" 
> non-sense and arrogance.

Now you're a bit unfair - if you sound like the verbal output of the DVD
Consortium, the suggestion that you're affiliated with them somehow does
present itself. ;) Not sure what it has to do with arrogance though.

Volker

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Volker Kuhlmann                 is possibly list0570 with the domain in header
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