Re: Problems when writing DVDs with growisofs

[Meino Christian Cramer <Meino.Cramer@gmx.de>]

From: Andy Polyakov <appro@fy.chalmers.se>
Subject: Re: Problems when writing DVDs with growisofs
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 18:39:58 +0200

> >  What data transferrate would you exspect while writing to a DVDRAM?
> 
> What does media case say? 3x? 2x? But no, not that much...

  Hmmmm...the media case is a plastic box witn a slider. Inside is a
  two sided DVDRAM. The writing on the slider says:

  Verbatim DVD-RAM 9.4GB - 4.7GB/side rewriteable TYPE A
  
  below that there is the DVD-logo with "RAM RAM 4.7" added

  Beside "SIDE A" and "SIDE B" there nothing more on the media.

  I can removed the media from the box for writing.
 
> >  I know, that is slower than DVD+/-RW, since it does verify the data,
> 
> Keep in mind that data written to DVD-RAM is verified immediately upon 
> write only when explicitly asked for with WRITE AND VERIFY
> command[*]. 

  ...Am I right here ?:"When writing to a DVDRAM with growisofs I will
 get a filesystem identical to that of a DVD: udf or iso9660."

> Otherwise data verification is performed upon later playback and if 
> block smells deteriorated, then the data is transparently moved to spare 
> area. It should also be noted that advertised velocity of 2-3x can only 
> be observed when you switch off defect control system [or bypass it be 
> means of "streaming recording"[**]]. So that as defect control is 
> [presumably] on by default, you're likely to observe lower speeds, 1x if 
> not less, so that an order of one hour magnitude for 4GB should be 
> reasonable...
> 
> [*] growisofs can do this with -use-the-force-luke=wrvfy, also note that 
> Linux kernel does *not* do anything of that sort;
> [**] for technically minded "streaming recording" refers to WRITE(12) 
> with "streaming" bit set;
> 
> >  but with my setup it takes hours to write 4GB...
> > 
> >  Hardware: LG 4163B (A106 firmware, newest stable)
> >  Software: Linux 2.6.17.4 (newest stable)
> > 
> >  formatted with udf (udftools)
> >  Mounted directly (no pktcdvd...)
> 
> I wouldn't put so much faith to Linux UDF write performance. Use ext2 or 
> stick to growisofs:-) One way or another it hardly have anything to do 
> with pktcdvd. A.

  I heard, that using ext2 or such will kill DVDRAM soon, since there
  are sectors (blocks? or whatever it is named ... sorry, I am not a
  native English speaker...) constantly written to, so they will die
  to soon since there max. write count has been reached.

   [ ] true  ?
   [ ] false ?

 Thanks a lot for your help in advance, Andy ! :)
 Keep hacking!
 mcc