[gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Philip Webb]

Apologies for the elementary questions, but I'm a bit slow to change (smile).

In designing my new machine, I assumed that I would simply transfer
the CD drive from the existing box to the new one,
but (1) the new mobo seems to have only SATA sockets
& (2) CD drives seem to be going the same way as diskette drives,
so I'm now planning to buy a new DVD drive & to start using DVDs.
I wb using them only for back-ups, not playing music or videos.

This looks like a good enough item :
  ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24x SATA Black R 48x W 8x OEM : CAD 24,99

Can anyone answer a few rather basic questions ?
(1) do I need to configure the kernel to find the drive ?
(2) what software do Gentoo users use to read/write DVDs ?
(3) are there rewritable DVDs, as there used to be rewritable CDs ?
-- among the specs are much slower speeds labelled 'RW'.
(4) anything else I sb aware of ?

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Mick]

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On Monday 20 Aug 2012 11:21:39 Philip Webb wrote:
> Apologies for the elementary questions, but I'm a bit slow to change
> (smile).
> 
> In designing my new machine, I assumed that I would simply transfer
> the CD drive from the existing box to the new one,
> but (1) the new mobo seems to have only SATA sockets
> & (2) CD drives seem to be going the same way as diskette drives,
> so I'm now planning to buy a new DVD drive & to start using DVDs.
> I wb using them only for back-ups, not playing music or videos.
> 
> This looks like a good enough item :
>   ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24x SATA Black R 48x W 8x OEM : CAD 24,99
> 
> Can anyone answer a few rather basic questions ?

I'll try.

> (1) do I need to configure the kernel to find the drive ?

Yes.  As a minimum have a look at BLK_DEV_SR and BLK_DEV_SR_VENDOR.  You may 
also need SCSI_PROC_FS for legacy applications.  The AHCI drivers would 
probably be enabled for your hard drive SATA controller anyway.


> (2) what software do Gentoo users use to read/write DVDs ?

From cdrecord man page (app-cdr/cdrtools):

"NAME
       cdrecord - record audio or data CD, DVD or BluRay"

and of course for a GUI front you can use k3b if you use KDE applications.  If 
you're not using KDE consider xfburn.  Not sure about Gnome applications like 
Brasero that is shipping with Mint/Ubuntu these days.


> (3) are there rewritable DVDs, as there used to be rewritable CDs ?
> -- among the specs are much slower speeds labelled 'RW'.

Yes, +RW, -RW, but don't know much more on this other than older DVD writers 
would only do one format not another and if you didn't pay attention to the 
specification/limitations of your hardware you could end up buying the wrong 
type of DVDs.  Someone more experienced on recording media could answer this 
better.


> (4) anything else I sb aware of ?

Given your adoption rate of new technology I suggest you consider buying a 
BluRay player if not recorder, because I don't know how long it will be before 
DVDs become obsolete too.  Unfortunately BluRay devices were out of my price 
range last time I bought hardware to justify paying the extra, so I can't 
recommend any.

HTH.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 20 Aug 2012 12:19:23 +0100, Mick wrote:

> Given your adoption rate of new technology I suggest you consider
> buying a BluRay player if not recorder, because I don't know how long
> it will be before DVDs become obsolete too.  Unfortunately BluRay
> devices were out of my price range last time I bought hardware to
> justify paying the extra, so I can't recommend any.

Bluray recorders are still expensive, as is the media. I have a
Samsung drive that does BD-ROM and DVD+/-R* and it just works.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

What you don't know can hurt you, only you won't know it.

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Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Joerg Schilling]

Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:

> On Mon, 20 Aug 2012 12:19:23 +0100, Mick wrote:
>
> > Given your adoption rate of new technology I suggest you consider
> > buying a BluRay player if not recorder, because I don't know how long
> > it will be before DVDs become obsolete too.  Unfortunately BluRay
> > devices were out of my price range last time I bought hardware to
> > justify paying the extra, so I can't recommend any.
>
> Bluray recorders are still expensive, as is the media. I have a
> Samsung drive that does BD-ROM and DVD+/-R* and it just works.

the media is affordable now....they (BD-R 25 GB) start at 1.5 Euro.
So this is less than the equivalent price per GB on a DVD.

Drives are still 2-3x as "expensive" than a DVD writer.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       js@cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)  
       joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Andrea Conti]

>> (1) do I need to configure the kernel to find the drive ?

It's basically handled exactly the same as a CD drive, so you need the
same configuration options you would use for that.

> Yes.  As a minimum have a look at BLK_DEV_SR and BLK_DEV_SR_VENDOR.  You may 
> also need SCSI_PROC_FS for legacy applications.  The AHCI drivers would 
> probably be enabled for your hard drive SATA controller anyway.

BLK_DEV_SR_VENDOR made sense when every drive manufacturer adopted their
own "standard" in designing interface protocols... with every drive made
on the planet in the last ten years being mmc-compliant, there is not
much point in still using that. Not that it hurts even if it's not needed...

>> (3) are there rewritable DVDs, as there used to be rewritable CDs ?
>> -- among the specs are much slower speeds labelled 'RW'.
> 
> Yes, +RW, -RW, but don't know much more on this other than older DVD writers 
> would only do one format not another and if you didn't pay attention to the 
> specification/limitations of your hardware you could end up buying the wrong 
> type of DVDs.  Someone more experienced on recording media could answer this 
> better.

Every modern recorder does both standards; depending on both the burner
and the reader you might find that one standard works better than the
other (i.e. has lower read error rates). Trial and error seems to be the
only working approach...

As for the standards, if you're just burning backups they're basically
equivalent. The +RW standard is theoretically more flexible as media can
be formatted in a "packet" mode which allows (almost) random r/w access,
but in my experience software support and reliability have always been
lousy, so forget about it.

+RW media cannot be erased in the same way CD-RWs are erased, -- you can
only overwrite it with new data. -RW behaves the same as CD-RWs in this
regard.

If you need rewritable DVD media with reliable random r/w access (but
this doesn't seem to be your case), there is a third standard (DVD-RAM)
which uses special disks with hardware sector marks. Drive support is
not hard to find nowadays (the drive you cited actually supports it),
but writing is slow, good media is expensive and the disks cannot be
read in most "normal" dvd drives; I have no idea about the state of
software support in Linux.

>> (4) anything else I sb aware of ?

DVDs (especially rewritable ones) are much less resilient than CDs.
Don't rely on a recorded DVD to be still readable after more than 3-4
years, because it probably won't be. While good quality (i.e. expensive)
brand media tends to be a little more durable, DVDs are not the right
choice for long-term archival.

> Given your adoption rate of new technology I suggest you consider buying a 
> BluRay player if not recorder, because I don't know how long it will be before 
> DVDs become obsolete too.

I doubt BD-R will ever supplant DVD-R the same way DVD-R did with CD-R.

When DVD-R came out there were no practical and affordable alternatives
for recording and transporting large quantities of data. Nowadays, on
the other hand, flash storage is ubiquitous and cheap enough to satisfy
the needs of most people. This slowed the adoption of BD-R a lot, to the
point that I'm not sure it will ever become a widespread technology.

IOW, I would only consider shelling out the cash for a BD-R drive if it
made sense for my current storage needs, not as an investment for the
future.

my € 0.02,
andrea

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Joerg Schilling]

Andrea Conti <alyf@alyf.net> wrote:

> As for the standards, if you're just burning backups they're basically
> equivalent. The +RW standard is theoretically more flexible as media can
> be formatted in a "packet" mode which allows (almost) random r/w access,
> but in my experience software support and reliability have always been
> lousy, so forget about it.
>
> +RW media cannot be erased in the same way CD-RWs are erased, -- you can
> only overwrite it with new data. -RW behaves the same as CD-RWs in this
> regard.

You are correct for DVD-RW and with all DVD- formats, there are frequent round 
robin tests with all writers vs. allr readers and all media. This kind of test 
does not exist for DVD+RW and I've seen a lot of problems with media 
interchange.


> I doubt BD-R will ever supplant DVD-R the same way DVD-R did with CD-R.
>
> When DVD-R came out there were no practical and affordable alternatives
> for recording and transporting large quantities of data. Nowadays, on
> the other hand, flash storage is ubiquitous and cheap enough to satisfy
> the needs of most people. This slowed the adoption of BD-R a lot, to the
> point that I'm not sure it will ever become a widespread technology.
>
> IOW, I would only consider shelling out the cash for a BD-R drive if it
> made sense for my current storage needs, not as an investment for the
> future.

Just a note:

When I got my first DVD writer in February 1998, the price of the writer 
was 15000 US$ and the price of a media was 80 US$.

When I received my first BR writer, the price of the writer was 600 Euro and 
the price of a medium was ~ 20 Euro.

Now the price for a medium is 1.5...3 Euro and the price for a writer is 
60...200 Euro. It took 5 years for DVD to get into this price level and it took 
5 years for BR to get into this price level. So where do you see a difference?

There is another difference: the fact that flash memory has become cheap did 
change the interest of the people.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       js@cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)  
       joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Pandu Poluan]

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On Aug 20, 2012 7:47 PM, "Andrea Conti" <alyf@alyf.net> wrote:
>

[snip]

> >
> > Yes, +RW, -RW, but don't know much more on this other than older DVD
writers
> > would only do one format not another and if you didn't pay attention to
the
> > specification/limitations of your hardware you could end up buying the
wrong
> > type of DVDs.  Someone more experienced on recording media could answer
this
> > better.
>
> Every modern recorder does both standards; depending on both the burner
> and the reader you might find that one standard works better than the
> other (i.e. has lower read error rates). Trial and error seems to be the
> only working approach...
>
> As for the standards, if you're just burning backups they're basically
> equivalent. The +RW standard is theoretically more flexible as media can
> be formatted in a "packet" mode which allows (almost) random r/w access,
> but in my experience software support and reliability have always been
> lousy, so forget about it.
>
> +RW media cannot be erased in the same way CD-RWs are erased, -- you can
> only overwrite it with new data. -RW behaves the same as CD-RWs in this
> regard.
>
> If you need rewritable DVD media with reliable random r/w access (but
> this doesn't seem to be your case), there is a third standard (DVD-RAM)
> which uses special disks with hardware sector marks. Drive support is
> not hard to find nowadays (the drive you cited actually supports it),
> but writing is slow, good media is expensive and the disks cannot be
> read in most "normal" dvd drives; I have no idea about the state of
> software support in Linux.
>

+RW *can* be erased, or else it won't be called RW :-)

That said, the difference is much deeper than differing metadata. Among
which :

* +RW uses Phase Modulation, -RW uses amplitude modulation. This gives +RW
much more robustness than -RW

* +RW blanks provide more info on the energy level required to burn, IIRC
up to 4 energy levels each tuned to a certain burning speed (e.g., 1x, 2x,
4x, and 8x). This *greatly* improves the success probability of burning.
-RW only provides energy level info for the maximum burning speed; if your
drive doesn't support that speed, it'll have to guess, and the results are
usually ungood

More history :

The CD Standard was originally developed by Philips, then adapted to the
data world requirements, including CD-R(W).  The DVD-R standard was
originally developed by Panasonic, but Philips had a spat with Panasonic
because in Phillips' view, the CD-R standard has shortcomings they
(Philips) want to fix; Panasonic was more interested in getting DVD-R out
of the door asap. This resulted in Philips -- together with someone else,
was it Sony? -- to independently released the DVD+R standard.

CMIIW

Rgds,

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Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Pandu Poluan]

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On Aug 20, 2012 8:51 PM, "Pandu Poluan" <pandu@poluan.info> wrote:
>
>
> On Aug 20, 2012 7:47 PM, "Andrea Conti" <alyf@alyf.net> wrote:
> >
>
> [snip]
>
> > >
> > > Yes, +RW, -RW, but don't know much more on this other than older DVD
writers
> > > would only do one format not another and if you didn't pay attention
to the
> > > specification/limitations of your hardware you could end up buying
the wrong
> > > type of DVDs.  Someone more experienced on recording media could
answer this
> > > better.
> >
> > Every modern recorder does both standards; depending on both the burner
> > and the reader you might find that one standard works better than the
> > other (i.e. has lower read error rates). Trial and error seems to be the
> > only working approach...
> >
> > As for the standards, if you're just burning backups they're basically
> > equivalent. The +RW standard is theoretically more flexible as media can
> > be formatted in a "packet" mode which allows (almost) random r/w access,
> > but in my experience software support and reliability have always been
> > lousy, so forget about it.
> >
> > +RW media cannot be erased in the same way CD-RWs are erased, -- you can
> > only overwrite it with new data. -RW behaves the same as CD-RWs in this
> > regard.
> >
> > If you need rewritable DVD media with reliable random r/w access (but
> > this doesn't seem to be your case), there is a third standard (DVD-RAM)
> > which uses special disks with hardware sector marks. Drive support is
> > not hard to find nowadays (the drive you cited actually supports it),
> > but writing is slow, good media is expensive and the disks cannot be
> > read in most "normal" dvd drives; I have no idea about the state of
> > software support in Linux.
> >
>
> +RW *can* be erased, or else it won't be called RW :-)
>
> That said, the difference is much deeper than differing metadata. Among
which :
>
> * +RW uses Phase Modulation, -RW uses amplitude modulation. This gives
+RW much more robustness than -RW
>
> * +RW blanks provide more info on the energy level required to burn, IIRC
up to 4 energy levels each tuned to a certain burning speed (e.g., 1x, 2x,
4x, and 8x). This *greatly* improves the success probability of burning.
-RW only provides energy level info for the maximum burning speed; if your
drive doesn't support that speed, it'll have to guess, and the results are
usually ungood
>
> More history :
>
> The CD Standard was originally developed by Philips, then adapted to the
data world requirements, including CD-R(W).  The DVD-R standard was
originally developed by Panasonic, but Philips had a spat with Panasonic
because in Phillips' view, the CD-R standard has shortcomings they
(Philips) want to fix; Panasonic was more interested in getting DVD-R out
of the door asap. This resulted in Philips -- together with someone else,
was it Sony? -- to independently released the DVD+R standard.
>
> CMIIW
>

Aha, found the page comparing +R(W) and -R(W) :

http://www.myce.com/article/why-dvdrw-is-superior-to-dvd-rw-203/

tldr: DVD+R(W) is technically a better standard. Use it.

Rgds,

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Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Joerg Schilling]

Pandu Poluan <pandu@poluan.info> wrote:

> On Aug 20, 2012 8:51 PM, "Pandu Poluan" <pandu@poluan.info> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Aug 20, 2012 7:47 PM, "Andrea Conti" <alyf@alyf.net> wrote:

> > +RW *can* be erased, or else it won't be called RW :-)
> >
> > That said, the difference is much deeper than differing metadata. Among
> which :
> >
> > * +RW uses Phase Modulation, -RW uses amplitude modulation. This gives
> +RW much more robustness than -RW

This is also wrong:


DVD+RW use 817.4 kHz in the pregrove and periodically inverts the phase as 
sector start marker. This is cheaper to press (as the stamper will last for more 
press cycles) but it is not as accurate as DVD-RW and you get floating bader 
quality during the life cycle of the stamper.

DVD-RW uses 140.6 kHz in the pregrove and in addition lans pits between the 
groves to mark the sector start, This is much more precise than what DVD+RW 
uses. Since aproc. 4 years, there is a new patented stamper method that uses 
dints in the pregrove instead of pits on top of the land. This is as precise as 
the pit on land method, compatoble to this method and allows stampers that are 
as cheap as the DVD+RW stampers. There is no degradaraion of the stamper 
accuracy as with DVD+RW, even with the new modified version.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       js@cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)  
       joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Pandu Poluan]

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On Aug 20, 2012 10:12 PM, "Joerg Schilling" <
Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote:
>
> Pandu Poluan <pandu@poluan.info> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 20, 2012 8:51 PM, "Pandu Poluan" <pandu@poluan.info> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > On Aug 20, 2012 7:47 PM, "Andrea Conti" <alyf@alyf.net> wrote:
>
> > > +RW *can* be erased, or else it won't be called RW :-)
> > >
> > > That said, the difference is much deeper than differing metadata.
Among
> > which :
> > >
> > > * +RW uses Phase Modulation, -RW uses amplitude modulation. This gives
> > +RW much more robustness than -RW
>
> This is also wrong:
>
>
> DVD+RW use 817.4 kHz in the pregrove and periodically inverts the phase as
> sector start marker. This is cheaper to press (as the stamper will last
for more
> press cycles) but it is not as accurate as DVD-RW and you get floating
bader
> quality during the life cycle of the stamper.
>
> DVD-RW uses 140.6 kHz in the pregrove and in addition lans pits between
the
> groves to mark the sector start, This is much more precise than what
DVD+RW
> uses. Since aproc. 4 years, there is a new patented stamper method that
uses
> dints in the pregrove instead of pits on top of the land. This is as
precise as
> the pit on land method, compatoble to this method and allows stampers
that are
> as cheap as the DVD+RW stampers. There is no degradaraion of the stamper
> accuracy as with DVD+RW, even with the new modified version.
>

Thanks for the technical information, although honestly, most are beyond me
:-P

That said, care to refute the following page:

http://www.myce.com/article/why-dvdrw-is-superior-to-dvd-rw-203/

because until someone publicly refute that article, I honestly will prefer
+RW over -RW.

(And, anecdotally, ever since I burn DVD's, I already had a stack of
failing -RW discs, while having only two failing +RW discs. I might be just
lucky, but since experience matches expectations (based on that article),
luck seems to not have anything to do with it.)

PS: I'm not trying to start a plus/minus war; I am sincerely interested,
and will switch my preferred optical media if corrected.

Rgds,

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Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am Montag, 20. August 2012, 23:12:14 schrieb Pandu Poluan:
> On Aug 20, 2012 10:12 PM, "Joerg Schilling" <
> 
> Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote:
> > Pandu Poluan <pandu@poluan.info> wrote:
> > > On Aug 20, 2012 8:51 PM, "Pandu Poluan" <pandu@poluan.info> wrote:
> > > > On Aug 20, 2012 7:47 PM, "Andrea Conti" <alyf@alyf.net> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > +RW *can* be erased, or else it won't be called RW :-)
> > > > 
> > > > That said, the difference is much deeper than differing metadata.
> 
> Among
> 
> > > which :
> > > > * +RW uses Phase Modulation, -RW uses amplitude modulation. This gives
> > > 
> > > +RW much more robustness than -RW
> > 
> > This is also wrong:
> > 
> > 
> > DVD+RW use 817.4 kHz in the pregrove and periodically inverts the phase as
> > sector start marker. This is cheaper to press (as the stamper will last
> 
> for more
> 
> > press cycles) but it is not as accurate as DVD-RW and you get floating
> 
> bader
> 
> > quality during the life cycle of the stamper.
> > 
> > DVD-RW uses 140.6 kHz in the pregrove and in addition lans pits between
> 
> the
> 
> > groves to mark the sector start, This is much more precise than what
> 
> DVD+RW
> 
> > uses. Since aproc. 4 years, there is a new patented stamper method that
> 
> uses
> 
> > dints in the pregrove instead of pits on top of the land. This is as
> 
> precise as
> 
> > the pit on land method, compatoble to this method and allows stampers
> 
> that are
> 
> > as cheap as the DVD+RW stampers. There is no degradaraion of the stamper
> > accuracy as with DVD+RW, even with the new modified version.
> 
> Thanks for the technical information, although honestly, most are beyond me
> 
> :-P
> 
> That said, care to refute the following page:
> 
> http://www.myce.com/article/why-dvdrw-is-superior-to-dvd-rw-203/
> 
> because until someone publicly refute that article, I honestly will prefer
> +RW over -RW.
> 
> (And, anecdotally, ever since I burn DVD's, I already had a stack of
> failing -RW discs, while having only two failing +RW discs. I might be just
> lucky, but since experience matches expectations (based on that article),
> luck seems to not have anything to do with it.)
> 
> PS: I'm not trying to start a plus/minus war; I am sincerely interested,
> and will switch my preferred optical media if corrected.
> 
> Rgds,

hm, I also had much besser results with + media. +rw and +r. 

-- 
#163933

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Dale]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> hm, I also had much besser results with + media. +rw and +r. 

I always get the + stuff too.  No problems so far.  < knock on wood >

Dale

:-)  :-) 

P. S.  I knocked to hard.  Now my head hurts.  LOL 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 2:04 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>> hm, I also had much besser results with + media. +rw and +r.
>
> I always get the + stuff too.  No problems so far.  < knock on wood >

If it's turning into a survey, these are what I use:

Sony/NEC Optiarc drive with bitsetting firmware

Taiyo-Yuden single-layer DVD-R
Memorex dual-layer DVD+R
Taiyo-Yuden CD-R
Mitsui gold CD-R (in years past)

I have never used a blu-ray disc or drive though the prices are coming
down, still read many reviews of bad burns/incompatible discs and
drives, etc. that scare me away from it for now.

:)

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Dale]

Paul Hartman wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 2:04 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>>> hm, I also had much besser results with + media. +rw and +r.
>> I always get the + stuff too.  No problems so far.  < knock on wood >
> If it's turning into a survey, these are what I use:
>
> Sony/NEC Optiarc drive with bitsetting firmware
>
> Taiyo-Yuden single-layer DVD-R
> Memorex dual-layer DVD+R
> Taiyo-Yuden CD-R
> Mitsui gold CD-R (in years past)
>
> I have never used a blu-ray disc or drive though the prices are coming
> down, still read many reviews of bad burns/incompatible discs and
> drives, etc. that scare me away from it for now.
>
> :)
>
>

I use Phillips and Memorex media.  I think both of those came from Big
Lots.  I paid $5.00 for 20 of them.  I bought a couple packs.  I have
used, and reused, them several times with no problems.  I use a LG
burner.  This is from hdparm:

Model=HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS50

I have some older imation CD media to.  Those I have used for years. 
Those are CD-RW.  Basically, I have use both kinds with no problems.  I
credit the really well made burner myself but . . . . it could be just
blind luck since I just buy whatever is on sale. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Joerg Schilling]

Pandu Poluan <pandu@poluan.info> wrote:

> +RW *can* be erased, or else it won't be called RW :-)

Not it definitely can't.

You just may overwrite it.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       js@cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)  
       joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Michael Mol]

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Joerg Schilling
<Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote:
> Pandu Poluan <pandu@poluan.info> wrote:
>
>> +RW *can* be erased, or else it won't be called RW :-)
>
> Not it definitely can't.
>
> You just may overwrite it.

Communications issue: You guys are talking about different encoding layers.

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Michael Mol]

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 7:19 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday 20 Aug 2012 11:21:39 Philip Webb wrote:
>> Apologies for the elementary questions, but I'm a bit slow to change
>> (smile).
>>
>> In designing my new machine, I assumed that I would simply transfer
>> the CD drive from the existing box to the new one,
>> but (1) the new mobo seems to have only SATA sockets
>> & (2) CD drives seem to be going the same way as diskette drives,
>> so I'm now planning to buy a new DVD drive & to start using DVDs.
>> I wb using them only for back-ups, not playing music or videos.
>>
>> This looks like a good enough item :
>>   ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24x SATA Black R 48x W 8x OEM : CAD 24,99
>>
>> Can anyone answer a few rather basic questions ?
>
> I'll try.
>
>> (1) do I need to configure the kernel to find the drive ?
>
> Yes.  As a minimum have a look at BLK_DEV_SR and BLK_DEV_SR_VENDOR.  You may
> also need SCSI_PROC_FS for legacy applications.  The AHCI drivers would
> probably be enabled for your hard drive SATA controller anyway.
>
>
>> (2) what software do Gentoo users use to read/write DVDs ?
>
> From cdrecord man page (app-cdr/cdrtools):
>
> "NAME
>        cdrecord - record audio or data CD, DVD or BluRay"
>
> and of course for a GUI front you can use k3b if you use KDE applications.  If
> you're not using KDE consider xfburn.  Not sure about Gnome applications like
> Brasero that is shipping with Mint/Ubuntu these days.

Brasero is a fine tool, and my tool of choice on Gentoo. (I don't use
a full GNOME or KDE desktop; Brasero works great without either.)

>
>
>> (3) are there rewritable DVDs, as there used to be rewritable CDs ?
>> -- among the specs are much slower speeds labelled 'RW'.
>
> Yes, +RW, -RW, but don't know much more on this other than older DVD writers
> would only do one format not another and if you didn't pay attention to the
> specification/limitations of your hardware you could end up buying the wrong
> type of DVDs.  Someone more experienced on recording media could answer this
> better.

Almost all of this stuff settled a little under a decade ago, but in
the beginning there was just the DVD. The DVD had a field in its
metadata called "book type", which was supposed to tell the DVD player
what kind of DVD it was. Was it a manufacturer-pressed disc? Was it a
burned disc? Was it something else? In order to master DVDs, you had
to get specially-licensed and controlled master discs, drives and
software which would allow you to write to that book type field.

DVD-R came out, and pressures from Hollywood dictated that this DVD-R
format hardcode a value into that Book Type field that declared the
disc as a burnable disc. This way, people who tried copying or burning
movies and the like would have these discs rejected by DVD players.

Some DVD players wouldn't play back movies from DVD-R discs. Some DVD
players wouldn't even acknowledge them; as far as these players were
concerned, that particular value in the 'book type' field was still
'reserved', so any disc that used it was invalid.

Along comes the DVD+R format. The DVD+R format has some variances in
*how* data is represented on disc, but to the player that doesn't know
any better, it looks just like any other DVD. The big difference DVD+R
brought was that the 'book type' field was burnable on any drive which
was capable of burning DVD+R media, and a disc appropriately burned
would play in any home DVD player as though it were a pressed disc.
(Yay, we can has home-recorded movies again!)

Both DVD+R and DVD-R discs are sold, but I only ever buy DVD+R discs;
as far as I can tell, playback works in everything, and just about any
recorder will record to them. I have to think that the DVD-R discs are
sold only because there are still some ancient burners out there.

When in doubt, go with DVD+R.

>
>
>> (4) anything else I sb aware of ?
>
> Given your adoption rate of new technology I suggest you consider buying a
> BluRay player if not recorder, because I don't know how long it will be before
> DVDs become obsolete too.  Unfortunately BluRay devices were out of my price
> range last time I bought hardware to justify paying the extra, so I can't
> recommend any.

There's something to this; a single-layer DVD only holds 4.7GB of
data. I carry around more rewriteable storage capacity than that in my
pants. (Literally; I have a pelican case full of SD and micro-SD
cards, for photography purposes.)

If this is a backup solution, it's probably better to look at blu-ray
or (even better) modern tape drive solutions. DVDs are kinda small by
modern storage standards.

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Joerg Schilling]

Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:

> Along comes the DVD+R format. The DVD+R format has some variances in
> *how* data is represented on disc, but to the player that doesn't know
> any better, it looks just like any other DVD. The big difference DVD+R
> brought was that the 'book type' field was burnable on any drive which
> was capable of burning DVD+R media, and a disc appropriately burned
> would play in any home DVD player as though it were a pressed disc.
> (Yay, we can has home-recorded movies again!)
>
> Both DVD+R and DVD-R discs are sold, but I only ever buy DVD+R discs;
> as far as I can tell, playback works in everything, and just about any
> recorder will record to them. I have to think that the DVD-R discs are
> sold only because there are still some ancient burners out there.

Not true: DVD- allows to write this too, but the media you can buy has been 
prerecorded to satisfy the film industry.



> When in doubt, go with DVD+R.

This is a wrong advise: When In doubt go DVD- as this is the official format.
There is one single exception: For Dual layer, the DVD+R/DL media gives better 
results.
Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       js@cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)  
       joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Michael Mol]

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 9:04 AM, Joerg Schilling
<Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote:
> Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Along comes the DVD+R format. The DVD+R format has some variances in
>> *how* data is represented on disc, but to the player that doesn't know
>> any better, it looks just like any other DVD. The big difference DVD+R
>> brought was that the 'book type' field was burnable on any drive which
>> was capable of burning DVD+R media, and a disc appropriately burned
>> would play in any home DVD player as though it were a pressed disc.
>> (Yay, we can has home-recorded movies again!)
>>
>> Both DVD+R and DVD-R discs are sold, but I only ever buy DVD+R discs;
>> as far as I can tell, playback works in everything, and just about any
>> recorder will record to them. I have to think that the DVD-R discs are
>> sold only because there are still some ancient burners out there.
>
> Not true: DVD- allows to write this too, but the media you can buy has been
> prerecorded to satisfy the film industry.

I alluded to this in my description of DVD-R. Thank you for correcting
my description of implementation details, though. (Obviously, you
don't need a special burner, but you do need to buy specially-licensed
media.)

>> When in doubt, go with DVD+R.
>
> This is a wrong advise: When In doubt go DVD- as this is the official format.

I don't understand this position at all for this context. Unless
you're doing work in particular fields for the recording industry, why
touch DVD-R at all? Doing so because "it's the official format"
doesn't really mean anything; the industry and market has been stable
for years, and upstream isn't going to switch out everything out from
under people using the format. (At least, not in a way that doesn't
screw over DVD-R users as well.)

I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong in that perhaps DVD-R might be
the more appropriate format, but you should give some better arguments
than "it's the official format".

> There is one single exception: For Dual layer, the DVD+R/DL media gives better
> results.

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Joerg Schilling]

Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:

> I alluded to this in my description of DVD-R. Thank you for correcting
> my description of implementation details, though. (Obviously, you
> don't need a special burner, but you do need to buy specially-licensed
> media.)

Well, if you manage to get unwritten DVD- media, you need a drive with special 
firmware and you even can pretend a different manufacturer ;-)

It is however hard to get this special firmware...


> >> When in doubt, go with DVD+R.
> >
> > This is a wrong advise: When In doubt go DVD- as this is the official format.
>
> I don't understand this position at all for this context. Unless
> you're doing work in particular fields for the recording industry, why
> touch DVD-R at all? Doing so because "it's the official format"
> doesn't really mean anything; the industry and market has been stable
> for years, and upstream isn't going to switch out everything out from
> under people using the format. (At least, not in a way that doesn't
> screw over DVD-R users as well.)

You seem to be anti-DVD- because you uncorrectly believe that it is related to 
the film industry. You are wrong. Pioneer asked the fil industry to make a 
useful proposal before Summer 2001 and as this proposal was not made, Pioneer 
started to sell the A03 for 1000 US $ - together with the prerecorded media 
format.

> I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong in that perhaps DVD-R might be
> the more appropriate format, but you should give some better arguments
> than "it's the official format".

I did give these arguments: There are variouy problems media compatibility of 
you use DVD+ with different drives. 

NOTE: DVD+ does not have a round robin check!!!!!!

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       js@cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)  
       joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Michael Mol]

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 9:53 AM, Joerg Schilling
<Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote:
> Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I alluded to this in my description of DVD-R. Thank you for correcting
>> my description of implementation details, though. (Obviously, you
>> don't need a special burner, but you do need to buy specially-licensed
>> media.)
>
> Well, if you manage to get unwritten DVD- media, you need a drive with special
> firmware and you even can pretend a different manufacturer ;-)
>
> It is however hard to get this special firmware...
>
>
>> >> When in doubt, go with DVD+R.
>> >
>> > This is a wrong advise: When In doubt go DVD- as this is the official format.
>>
>> I don't understand this position at all for this context. Unless
>> you're doing work in particular fields for the recording industry, why
>> touch DVD-R at all? Doing so because "it's the official format"
>> doesn't really mean anything; the industry and market has been stable
>> for years, and upstream isn't going to switch out everything out from
>> under people using the format. (At least, not in a way that doesn't
>> screw over DVD-R users as well.)
>
> You seem to be anti-DVD- because you uncorrectly believe that it is related to
> the film industry. You are wrong. Pioneer asked the fil industry to make a
> useful proposal before Summer 2001 and as this proposal was not made, Pioneer
> started to sell the A03 for 1000 US $ - together with the prerecorded media
> format.

No, I'm not anti-DVD-, or even anti-film-industry.

I recommend DVD+ over DVD- for the uninitiated, for compatibility and
flexibility reasons.

>
>> I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong in that perhaps DVD-R might be
>> the more appropriate format, but you should give some better arguments
>> than "it's the official format".
>
> I did give these arguments: There are variouy problems media compatibility of
> you use DVD+ with different drives.

Your description runs counter to my experience. But that's not
terribly surprising; there will of course be players which won't
handle DVD+ media, but I've found them to be few and far between.

>
> NOTE: DVD+ does not have a round robin check!!!!!!

I don't know what that is, and searching isn't turning up anything but
pages about a movie called 'round robin'.

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Joerg Schilling]

Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:

> > I did give these arguments: There are variouy problems media compatibility of
> > you use DVD+ with different drives.
>
> Your description runs counter to my experience. But that's not
> terribly surprising; there will of course be players which won't
> handle DVD+ media, but I've found them to be few and far between.

It happened with Sony vs. Ricoh, vs. Philips writers and I could rarely rewrite 
media that has been written before in another writer.

> >
> > NOTE: DVD+ does not have a round robin check!!!!!!
>
> I don't know what that is, and searching isn't turning up anything but
> pages about a movie called 'round robin'.

Why don't you just read my explanation from my previous mail?

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       js@cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)  
       joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Michael Mol]

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 11:05 AM, Joerg Schilling
<Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote:
> Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> > I did give these arguments: There are variouy problems media compatibility of
>> > you use DVD+ with different drives.
>>
>> Your description runs counter to my experience. But that's not
>> terribly surprising; there will of course be players which won't
>> handle DVD+ media, but I've found them to be few and far between.
>
> It happened with Sony vs. Ricoh, vs. Philips writers and I could rarely rewrite
> media that has been written before in another writer.

Could be an issue unique to the RW space. I never hung out there. It
always made more sense to burn+verify a disc and either file it away,
or discard it when done. A spindle of discs is pretty cheap, and a
spindle of 25-50 lasts me a year or two.

>
>> >
>> > NOTE: DVD+ does not have a round robin check!!!!!!
>>
>> I don't know what that is, and searching isn't turning up anything but
>> pages about a movie called 'round robin'.
>
> Why don't you just read my explanation from my previous mail?

Which one? There are nearly twenty messages here over the span of five
hours, six of them are yours, and I can't hang on your every word. If
you're going to reply to me, include context in your replies; don't
count on my having read everything you might have said in response to
someone else.

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[microcai]

2012/8/20 Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net>:
> Apologies for the elementary questions, but I'm a bit slow to change (smile).
>
> In designing my new machine, I assumed that I would simply transfer
> the CD drive from the existing box to the new one,
> but (1) the new mobo seems to have only SATA sockets
> & (2) CD drives seem to be going the same way as diskette drives,
> so I'm now planning to buy a new DVD drive & to start using DVDs.
> I wb using them only for back-ups, not playing music or videos.
>
> This looks like a good enough item :
>   ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24x SATA Black R 48x W 8x OEM : CAD 24,99
>
> Can anyone answer a few rather basic questions ?
> (1) do I need to configure the kernel to find the drive ?

NO.  just enable packet write and SCSI_CDROM



> (2) what software do Gentoo users use to read/write DVDs ?

k3b is a good one

> (3) are there rewritable DVDs, as there used to be rewritable CDs ?

sure

> -- among the specs are much slower speeds labelled 'RW'.
> (4) anything else I sb aware of ?
>
> --
> ========================,,============================================
> SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
> ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
> TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca
>
>

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Dale]

microcai wrote:
> 2012/8/20 Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net>:
>
>> (2) what software do Gentoo users use to read/write DVDs ?
> k3b is a good one
>

If you don't use KDE or Gnome, try this one:

app-cdr/tkdvd

It's simple but it worked last time I tried it. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Michael Mol]

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 6:21 AM, Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net> wrote:
> Apologies for the elementary questions, but I'm a bit slow to change (smile).
>
> In designing my new machine, I assumed that I would simply transfer
> the CD drive from the existing box to the new one,
> but (1) the new mobo seems to have only SATA sockets
> & (2) CD drives seem to be going the same way as diskette drives,
> so I'm now planning to buy a new DVD drive & to start using DVDs.
> I wb using them only for back-ups, not playing music or videos.
>
> This looks like a good enough item :
>   ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24x SATA Black R 48x W 8x OEM : CAD 24,99
>
> Can anyone answer a few rather basic questions ?
> (1) do I need to configure the kernel to find the drive ?
> (2) what software do Gentoo users use to read/write DVDs ?
> (3) are there rewritable DVDs, as there used to be rewritable CDs ?
> -- among the specs are much slower speeds labelled 'RW'.
> (4) anything else I sb aware of ?

This thread has exploded into arcane info irrelevant to you. So here's
what I recommend:

Walk into any old store and buy a $15-$30 drive. Most burners these
days support burning CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM.
Writing dual-layer discs is slightly less common, but still cheap and
easy to get.

Long and short of it, just go out and get a drive; just about any of
them will do what you need them to do.

As for kernel support, once you get past the SATA/AHCI learning curve,
it's a piece of cake. The standard for writing to SATA CD burners is
essentially the same as it was for ATAPI burners, and both SATA and
ATAPI are very similar (in that they borrow heavily from SCSI). Just
about any software that can write to a CD burner should have no
trouble writing to a DVD burner.
-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Joerg Schilling]

Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:

> Walk into any old store and buy a $15-$30 drive. Most burners these
> days support burning CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM.
> Writing dual-layer discs is slightly less common, but still cheap and
> easy to get.

Looking at the pile of writers I have at home, there are much more dual laywr 
writers than DVD-RAM aware ones.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       js@cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)  
       joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Michael Mol]

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Joerg Schilling
<Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote:
> Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Walk into any old store and buy a $15-$30 drive. Most burners these
>> days support burning CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM.
>> Writing dual-layer discs is slightly less common, but still cheap and
>> easy to get.
>
> Looking at the pile of writers I have at home, there are much more dual laywr
> writers than DVD-RAM aware ones.

Then the art has improved since I last went shopping. *shrug*

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] new machine : DVD drive

[Walter Dnes]

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 06:21:39AM -0400, Philip Webb wrote

> so I'm now planning to buy a new DVD drive & to start using DVDs.
> I wb using them only for back-ups, not playing music or videos.
> 
> This looks like a good enough item :
>   ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24x SATA Black R 48x W 8x OEM : CAD 24,99

  Some "outside the box thinking"...
* You said CDs are going away, so let's use DVDs
* Others said DVDs are going away, so let's use Bluerays
* I say that exposed-platter media in general is going away

  So let's look at using USB keys instead...
* My "offsite backup" is a couple of 16-gig USB keys in a safety deposit
  box at my bank.  Ever tried to stash a CD/DVD/Blueray disk into a
  regular-size safety deposit box?  It doesn't work.

* Random access - check

* All permissions and ownership UIDs - check (when formatted with any
  linux file system).

  I suggest formatting as ext2fs.  It's simple, and it works.  You won't
be writing that often, and journaling filesystems can be murder on USB
keys.  FAT32 doesn't save linux ownership+permissions.  Also, while the
FAT32 partition can go up to 2 terabytes, individual files can only go
up to 4 gigs.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications