dvdrecord(C)

dvdrecord, cdrecord -- record DVDs or CDs from an image file

Syntax

dvdrecord [ options ] imagefile

Description

dvdrecord is a licensed port of the ProDVD utility, an enhanced version of the freeware cdrecord(1) utility. On SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.7 systems with dvdrecord, both names (cdrecord and dvdrecord) invoke the ProDVD version of the utility. Both types of drives use the same device nodes (/dev/cd*).

cdrecord(1) supports many options and formats that are beyond the scope of basic file archiving. This page documents the most common tasks for creating data CDs and DVDs and includes information specific to SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.7.

Listing available devices

To display a list of CD/DVD devices on the system, use the -scanbus option of the cdrecord(1) command:

dvdrecord -scanbus

A list of devices similar to this is displayed (SCSI addresses are shown regardless of the controller type):

   scsibus0:
         0,0,0   0) 'ATAPI '  'CD-RW 52X24X ' 'MB51' Removable CD-ROM
         0,1,0   1) *
         0,2,0   2) *
         0,3,0   3) *
         0,4,0   4) *
         0,5,0   5) *
         0,6,0   6) *
         0,7,0   7) *

In this case an ATAPI CD writer is the first device on an IDE controller (address 0,0,0).

cdrecord/dvdrecord default file (/etc/default/cdrecord)

This file contains the default device settings for cdrecord and dvdrecord. First are the device, speed, and buffer settings (note that the latter two are commented out):

   CDR_DEVICE=ide
   #CDR_SPEED=40
   #CDR_FIFOSIZE=4m

The CDR_DEVICE setting is actually an index into a table with a series of drive-specific defaults:

   # drive name    device  speed   fifosize driveropts
   #
   teac=           1,3,0   -1      -1      ""
   panasonic=      1,4,0   -1      -1      ""
   plextor=        1,4,0   -1      -1      ""
   sanyo=          1,4,0   -1      -1      burnfree
   yamaha=         1,5,0   -1      -1      ""
   ide=            0,0,0   -1      -1      burnfree
   cdrom=          0,6,0   2       1m      ""

The default entry is ide (as defined by CDR_DEVICE). Because a generic SCSI driver is used for all CD/DVD drives, the SCSI address scheme (host adapter, device, LUN) is used even with IDE controllers. At the same time, this scheme only applies to IDE controllers with CD/DVD drives (that is, the numbering of host adapters is not absolute.) For example, on a system with no SCSI adapters and two IDE controllers, the controller with the CD/DVD drive attached is host adapter 0 (even if it happens to be the secondary IDE controller).

NOTE: On the command line, the LUN (0) can be omitted (as it is in the examples discussed here).

Note the default addresses for other drives are not realistic; be sure and change the device address in second column to match the actual drive settings. The other columns (speed, buffer size, and driver options) can be set as desired. A value of -1 indicates that the device uses its own default value. The quotes in the column indicate an empty option list; burnfree allocates a larger buffer for write operations (if supported by the drive). Other options are documented in cdrecord(1).

Creating a data disc

Before using cdrecord/dvdrecord to make a data disc you must first create an ISO image with mkisofs. This sample command creates an ISO9660 image of the working directory (.) with Joliet (-J) and RockRidge (-r) directory entries and stores it in the file /tmp/cdimg.iso:

mkisofs -r -J -o /tmp/cdimg.iso .

To write this image to a disc, you would use a command like this:

dvdrecord -v -eject dev=0,0 /tmp/cdimg.iso

The -v is optional and generates verbose output. The dev= argument can also be omitted if the default drive is defined in /etc/default/cdrecord. The -eject option ejects the disc when the process is complete. In addition, cdrecord displays a nine-second countdown to give you an opportunity to abort the command.

You can also perform a test burn using the -dummy option:

dvdrecord -v -dummy /tmp/cdimg.iso

The command is executed as specified, but the laser is not activated.

NOTE: The -dummy option may actually damage media on certain drives (rendering them unusable). The -dummy option cannot be used with DVD+R and DVD+RW media.

If the system is relatively idle (with little or no disk activity), it is possible to skip creating the image and pipe the output of mkisofs directly to cdrecord:

mkisofs -r /usr/home/cforbin | cdrecord -

In this example, the contents of /usr/home/cforbin is written to the disc (the - argument takes data from the standard input).

WARNING: On active systems you should create an ISO image for best results.

Mounting a disc

You can mount and unmount a disc from the desktop using the MountCD icon, or from the command line as in these examples using /mnt as a mount point:

mount -r /dev/cd0 /mnt
umount /mnt

Media support

cdrecord and dvdrecord support the following drive types/media:

Media Read-Write

Type Behavior

CD-R Existing data cannot be erased or overwritten

Additional sessions can be appended

CD-RW Entire disc can be erased/blanked

Explicit erasing/blanking required before rewrite

Additional sessions can be appended

DVD-R Existing data cannot be erased or overwritten

Additional sessions can not be appended

DVD-RW Entire disc can be erased/blanked

Explicit erasing/blanking required before rewrite

Additional sessions can not be appended

DVD+R Existing data cannot be erased or overwritten

Additional sessions can not be appended

DVD+RW Erasing/blanking unnecessary (and not supported)

Disc can be rewritten at will

Additional sessions can not be appended

Media	Read-Write
Type	Behavior
CD-R	Existing data cannot be erased or overwritten
	Additional sessions can be appended
CD-RW	Entire disc can be erased/blanked
	Explicit erasing/blanking required before rewrite
	Additional sessions can be appended
DVD-R	Existing data cannot be erased or overwritten
	Additional sessions can not be appended
DVD-RW	Entire disc can be erased/blanked
	Explicit erasing/blanking required before rewrite
	Additional sessions can not be appended
DVD+R	Existing data cannot be erased or overwritten
	Additional sessions can not be appended
DVD+RW	Erasing/blanking unnecessary (and not supported)
	Disc can be rewritten at will
	Additional sessions can not be appended

Multisession support is restricted to CD media. A similar capability for DVD (``multiborder'') is not yet supported.

For DVD+RW and DVD+R media, dummy writing mode (-dummy) is not supported. In addition, a minimum of 800MB is always written to DVD+R/W media.

Multisession support (CD only)

To create multisession disks, you must use the -multi option to leave the CD open (un-fixated) for writing additional sessions:

cdrecord -multi image.iso

To finalize a CD (making it non-writable), simply omit the -multi option.

Writing a new session on a CD normally hides the previous session from view (requiring an application that allows you to select the active session). However, it is possible to import the TOC (table of contents) from the previous session and make the previously-written data available in the ISO image for the next session.

In this example, mkisofs uses the -C option to execute the cdrecord -msinfo command on the specified drive (-M 0,0) to read the location of the previous session and uses the response to create the ISO image:

mkisofs -r -J -C `cdrecord -msinfo` -M 0,0 -o image.iso /usr/home/colossus

When cdrecord is used to write the image to CD, all the previous data will be accessible along with the new files (in this example, from /usr/home/colossus).

By default, the mount(ADM) command loads the last session. (At this time, only the first and last sessions can be mounted.) To override the default and mount the first session, use the syntax in this example:

mount -o session=1 /dev/cd0 /mnt

NOTE: When cdrecord(1) was distributed as an unsupported download (and multisession read support was not present in SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.7), only the first session could be mounted.

Limitations

At this time there is a 2GB file size limit on SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.7. If you wish to write more than 2GB of data to a DVD, you must use the -split-output option of mkisofs(1). The following example creates a set of 1GB image files that can be used as input for dvdrecord:

mkisofs -J -r -split-output -o /u/file.iso /tmp/corral

This example collects the files located in /tmp/corral and creates a series of files named file.iso_01, /file.iso_2, and so on. The following example writes those same files to DVD:

dvdrecord /u/file.iso_*

Standards conformance

dvdrecord is not part of any currently supported standard.