Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[marko]

I've taken advantage of the holiday slow-down to revisit my image handling workflow which is still in the process of being developed!!

I was thinking today, that as I have MC cataloguing image files burned to a regular data DVD, I think I'd like to go a step further and keep original .tif files on DVD. The idea being, that I can use layers to track the edit history in the tif file, and keep an exported .jpg file on the hard drive for general consumption.

So, if I used packet writing, I would be able to save changes to the tif files back to the DVD and all would be good. MC keeps all tif tags "database only" so I'd have nothing to worry about there, and I have the view scheme in place to list the .tif files along side any .jpg versions that exist to make tag syncing reasonably a reasonably simple affair.

Which brings me round to the various packet writing software options available. The two I'm familiar with are the offerings from Nero and Roxio, but have neither installed. I've avoided them like the plague so far because over the years, it seems like all I've ever read about are regular burning problems caused by having packet writing software installed, and I've never really recognised any need for it. Now, in recent times, packet writing software conflicts have been pretty much non-existant. Is that because no-one uses it, or because all the niggling issues have now been ironed out?

If packet writing software is no longer a problem, is there anything to choose between them or are they all much of a muchness?
EDIT:
Will MC even be able to read files from a packet written disc?
It's been a long time, but, IIRC, the only thing that can read the disc is the software that wrote it, is that right?
In which case, this whole idea could be a non-starter, or a feature request!!

I'd want MC to be able to read and catalogue the packet written disc.
I'd want to be able to select a file from that disc, and use MC's 'send to..' to open it in a 3rd party editor.
I'd then save the changes as a jpeg to HDD, which Otto would catch.
I'd then save the changes to file on the DVD by hitting 'Save' in the 3rd party editor and expect the changes to be saved to the DVD

I've really no experience with packet writing software, and as I've meandered up enough cul-de-sacs already with this, perhaps someone would be kind enough to tell me if I'm way off beam with this or not?
================
I know that hard drives are cheap and all that, but 'cheap' is something that's directly related to the state of your bank balance. Also, in the past, I've had hard drives die on me, more than once, and backup DVDs were my saviour, which is why I tend to lean in that direction

-marko.

[Mr ChriZ]

When it first coame out it was really dodgy teritory.
I had one Windows installation completly nuked by CDQuadrats one (I think they became part of Nero)
It installs a reallly low level driver into Windows, so that all aplications can read/write to the disc. I think they've got much better with the new drives, but as a result of my previous experiences I've never really been game to try them again.

[BartMan01]

Personally I avoid that like the plague.  They are not 100% compatible discs (so you may not be able to read them everywhere you need to).  I use flash drives when I need that type of data storage.

One issue I can see with what you are proposing is that CDs won't 'reclaim' space like a HD will once files are deleted or changed.  So you start with a 20MB .Tiff file and save that to disc.  You have used up 20mb of space.  You add a layer, and now the file is 30mb.  It 'deletes' the 20MB file and writes the 30MB file.  You now have used up 50MB of space.  Depending on how often you add layers, and how much space those layers take, you could run out of space on the CD very quickly.

[jmone]

I looked at this years ago and appoligies if my info is not up to date but at the time DVD-RAM was best suited to this (any of the cheapo LG Super Multi DVD Writers support this now) but found the process way too SLOW.  You can use other RW formats (DVD+RW / DVD-RW) but DVD-RAM was designed with packet writing in mind as they have a much higher spec for how often you can write each bit.  From what I remember a relative weakness of +/-RW formats is that, while they support say 3,000 rewrites, this can be reached quickly with packet writing as it is constantly updating the FAT.  DVD-RAM supports something like 100,000 rewrites. 

[JimH]

I think Marko may consider this a dare.

[marko]

sorry Jim, not this time.

Replies from Mr Chriz, Bartman and jmone (thanks) are enough to confirm for me that the idea is pretty much a non-starter. I guessed as much, but as it's been so long since I looked at packet writing, I figured it might be worth checking if things had improved any on that front.

Bartman's suggestion of using flash drives was interesting, and as I've got a 1 gig model kicking around here not doing a great deal, I decided to test this out.

Now, unless you can convince me otherwise, I have a new bug to add to the list:
Surely, if the device shows up in "My Computer" under the "Devices With Removable Storage" section, and it's "Type" is shown as being "Removable Disk" then shouldn't files placed there have their MC [Removable] flag set to 1?

If I had 250 gigs of audio on an external HDD, would their [removable] flags be 1 or 0? (I'd expect them to be 1, but now I'm not so sure)
Am I correct in my assumption that files that are flagged as "removable" are added to the cd\dvd database rather than the main library database?
I would much prefer these files to be flagged as removable so that I don't have them dragged into local file lists with big fiery crosses plastered all over the thumbnails.
If flagged as removable and placed in the cd database, they wouldn't get in the way of general browsing and I could build specific view schemes for viewing those files, without the missing file flag popping up all over the place. I've been watching Otto like a hawk too, but so far, he's been behaving and not removed the files from the library. This would be a very bad thing indeed as .tif files don't hold any tag info... <nudge nudge>