NOTE: This document was originally written in early 2002. Everything in this document is still current except for the prices of DVD+/-R/RW drives (obviously, they are cheaper now).
This is my story of trying to get a rewriteable DVD drive for my SunBlade 100 (running Solaris 8) and Linux Box (running RH 7.1). This is not a FAQ since nothing works the way that I want it to. But, I did finally burn my First DVD-RW using Solaris :) Linux didn't work out, it has too many problems. I suppose that this is more of a rant than anything else.
Make sure that you read the updates at the end of this page. New information is turning up every day.
The first problem:
It
turns out that there are 4 major DVD formats/types: DVD-ROM, DVD-RW, DVD+RW,
and DVD-RAM. Each format has it's own pluses and minuses. My
requirements where for a DVD recorder that could store computer data and
also make video DVDs that can be played in consumer DVD players such as
the Sony PlayStation 2. Well, it turns out that each DVD format/recorder
is diametrically opposed to the other DVD/recorder formats. Note:
Consumer DVD players and most notebook computers use the DVD-ROM format.
The recordable formats are:
DVD-ROM:
The third problem:
All of these
new DVD recorders are now comimg out with IDE or Firewire interfaces.
What's the deal with this!!?? Anyone with a CD-RW drive has already
upgraded to a SCSI controller! Why o why are the manufactures embracing
the slow IDE interface!!??
So, what do I have?
I
bought a Pioneer DVR-A03 drive because it seems to be getting really good
reviews. It can read and write DVD-R(G). DVD-RW, CD-R, and CD-RW.
(And only cost $369.00USD in an OEM pack). Unfortunately, it is a
RPC-2 (regional code) type drive, but I'm not worried about playing DVDs
from other countries (what a scam RPC is! It's amazing to me that
most of the world's governments support this kind of restrictive trade
practice. So much for the consumer...) It is also a IDE type
drive, which is a problem for me. I like to move expensive drives/disk
between my various computers. So I found a company that sells
IDE to SCSI converters (with or without a case!) They are MicroLand
electronics (look for the ARS2000UB).
What about software?
Wow, finding software
to burn a DVD on ANY Platform is really hard. Of course, there are
a few packages for M$ Windoze, but even they are pretty expensivie ($500.00USD
and up). If you are in the *NIX camp, things are really bleak.
Gear Software looks the most promising, but even their $1500.00USD package
(Solaris, HP-UX) doesn't burn DVDs! And, Gear's DVD Pro for Linux
doesn't burn DVDs (the demo version anyways, and I'm not going to spend
$400.00USD for the full version to find out that my funky DVD setup won't
work).
I was finally able to find a hacked version of cdrecord (version 1.11a08 + DVD hack) that would supposedly burn a DVD. Of course, it didn't work right off. So I hacked it some more and now have a version that will burn DVD-R and DVD-R/W disks on my Solaris 8 Sunblade :) Note: the hacked version messes up some of the TAO functions so it should not be used for burning CD-R(W)s.
So, the setup is:
SunBlade 100 with Sun PCI
UltraSCSI card.
Solaris 8 (kernel Generic_108528-07)
Pioneer DVR-A03 DVD-R/W
drive
Acard Technologies case
with an IDE to Ultra-SCSI converter
Hacked up version of cdrecord
1.11a08+DVD hack+my hack
A few extra notes:
This is my first DVD
burn session (using a DVD-RW disk just in case something went wrong):
(Note: There are several debugging
messages and a couple of errors that weren't really errors)
(note to bob: the special cdrecord is in build/cdrtools-1.11/cdrecord/OBJ/sparc-sunos5-gcc/)
blade[root]204: ./cdrecord
-v -ignsize -dao dev=1,4,0 -data /space2/raw/track-01.img
Cdrecord 1.11a08+B
(sparc-sun-solaris2.8) Copyright (C) 1995-2001 Jörg Schilling
TOC Type: 1 = CD-ROM
scsidev: '1,4,0'
scsibus: 1 target:
4 lun: 0
Warning: Using USCSI
interface.
Using libscg version
'schily-0.5'
atapi: 0
Device type
: Removable CD-ROM
Version
: 2
Response Format: 2
Capabilities
: SYNC
Vendor_info
: 'PIONEER '
Identifikation : 'DVD-RW
DVR-103 '
Revision
: '1.65'
Device seems to be:
Generic mmc2 DVD.
identify_dvd: checking
for DVD media
./cdrecord: I/O error.
read dvd structure: scsi sendcmd: no error
CDB: AD 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 0F 00 00
status: 0x0 (GOOD
STATUS)
resid: 15
cmd finished after
14.443s timeout 240s
sense key -1
In sense key not ready
./cdrecord: I/O error.
read dvd structure: scsi sendcmd: no error
CDB: AD 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 0F 00 00
status: 0x0 (GOOD
STATUS)
resid: 15
cmd finished after
14.443s timeout 240s
identify_dvd: is_dvd:
1
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc
DVD-R(W) driver (mmc_mdvd).
Driver flags
: SWABAUDIO
Supported modes: PACKET
SAO
Drive buf size : 1245184
= 1216 KB
FIFO size
: 4194304 = 4096 KB
Track 01: data
3068 MB
Total size:
3524 MB (349:10.18) = 1571264 sectors
Lout start:
3524 MB (349:12/14) = 1571264 sectors
Current Secsize: 2048
ATIP start
of lead in: -150 (00:00/00)
Disk type:
unknown
Manuf. index: -1
Manufacturer: unknown
(not in table)
Blocks total: 2298496
Blocks current: 2298496 Blocks remaining: 727232
Starting to write
CD/DVD at speed 1 in write mode for single session.
Last chance to quit,
starting real write in 0 seconds. Operation starts.
Waiting for reader
process to fill input buffer ... input buffer ready.
trackno=0
Performing OPC...
Sending CUE sheet...
./cdrecord: WARNING:
Drive returns wrong startsec (0) using -150
Starting new track
at sector: 0
Track 01: 3068 of
3068 MB written (fifo 100%).
Track 01: Total bytes
read/written: 3217948672/3217948672 (1571264 sectors).
Writing time:
2267.188s
Fixating...
Fixating time:
116.783s
./cdrecord: fifo had
50686 puts and 50686 gets.
./cdrecord: fifo was
0 times empty and 25110 times full, min fill was 93%.
blade[root]205:
And, the contents of the DVD-RW are:
blade[barnesr]73: ls -al
total 6284819
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root
sys 2048 Feb 16 15:54 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 root
nobody 512 Feb 16 17:00 ..
-r--r--r-- 1 root
root 2146799104 Feb 16 15:59 C.diskimage.bak
-r--r--r-- 1 root
root 1071022080 Feb 15 19:18 curly.tar
-r--r--r-- 1 root
root 2216 Feb 15 19:28 filesystems
-r--r--r-- 1 root
root 497 Feb 15 18:42 ftab
So, it worked! And, the files are readable!
UPDATES:
06/14/02: It turns out that Solaris
has a 4G limit bug for hsfs (a type of ISO-9660). This is probably
why I couldn't write a DVD larger than 4,199,731,200.
The patch is 109764-04 (For Sparc/Solaris 8).
06/15/02: Joerg now has cdrecord-proDVD
(in binary format only, for non-commercial use) up on his web site.
The web site is at: http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employees/joerg.schilling/private/cdrecord.html
Make sure that you read the README, it has alot of important info in it
(like the key to make cdrecord-proDVD work!) Linux still has alot
of problems, like large file format and glibc incompatibilities.
Solaris needs patches to write large DVDs (>4G see above update) (Joerg
includes a patch list for the various Solaris versions). And, the
Acard IDE to SCSI converter now has special support included.
06/15/02: More notes about my setup.
There are various issues with the Acard IDE to SCSI converter such as it
does not support the full SCSI command set (such as connect/disconnect).
I have not had these problems, however, it is probably because I only have
slow/linear devices on the SCSI bus (CD-RW, Tape drive, and the DVD-RW
(well, the DVD has a pretty high transfer speed, but it is still a linear
device)). If you were to put a SCSI hard disk drive (which
has high speed, random access, and takes full advantage of the full SCSI
command set) on the SCSI bus the Acard converter may cause problems (I
haven't tried this so I'm only speculating).
08/15/02: Bought an Apple PowerMac G4 with a SuperDrive
(which is really a Pioneer A03 DVD-R/W drive). Strangely, Apple doesn't
avertise this fact (or that it is a R/W drive instead of just a DVD-R.
They also do not provide a way to erase a DVD-R/W...) I suppose that
this could be considered a sell out of my Open Source philosophy, however,
the Mac's iMoive (free with MacOSX) is a really great program and
I also bought Final Cut Pro (a professional video editing program)(expensive).
The Mac also has iDVD (DVD burning program)(free with MacOSX). Once
Open Source has programs like these I will happily jump back to my SunBlade
for video editing (of course, my SunBlade (Solaris 8) is still my primary
computer. I don't think that I'm ready to "switch" as Apple wishes)
- UPDATE 12/19/02 My Powermac running MACOSX10.2 and
iDVD 2.1 WILL BURN video DVDs that can be played on the Sony Playstation
2 (PS2) (with modifications).
I upgraded my PS2 with the Sony DVD remote
control kit (which included a firmware upgrade, IR receiver, and remote
control ($20.00USD)). I'm not sure if this upgrade is required to
make the PS2 play home movies because I always assumed that it wouldn't
work since "home made" DVDs are DVD-General and I never tried to play a
DVD-G disk in my PS2 before the upgrade. The results where so-so:
There's actually a hack for this, if you insert a DVD-R when it asks you for one, let it recognize it, then quickly push the eject button insert your dvd-rw, it will then work!!!!If you generate the disk correctly, all that you will see the root directory is:
The VIDEO_TS directory contains:
ls -al /Volumes/TEST_DVD/VIDEO_TS
total 4297476
dr-xr-xr-x 2 unknown nogroup
1028 Dec 19 11:29 .
dr-xr-xr-x 4 unknown nogroup
136 Dec 19 11:29 ..
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
14336 Dec 19 11:29 VIDEO_TS.BUP
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
14336 Dec 19 11:29 VIDEO_TS.IFO
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
109012992 Dec 19 11:29 VIDEO_TS.VOB
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
14336 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_01_0.BUP
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
14336 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_01_0.IFO
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
85997568 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_01_1.VOB
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
14336 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_02_0.BUP
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
14336 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_02_0.IFO
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
8310784 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_02_1.VOB
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
14336 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_03_0.BUP
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
14336 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_03_0.IFO
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
78292992 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_03_1.VOB
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
32768 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_04_0.BUP
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
32768 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_04_0.IFO
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup 1073565696
Dec 19 11:29 VTS_04_1.VOB
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
790487040 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_04_2.VOB
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
16384 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_05_0.BUP
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
16384 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_05_0.IFO
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown nogroup
54423552 Dec 19 11:29 VTS_05_1.VOB
And the audio directory has nothing in it since the audio
was integrated with the video (VOB).
Subject:
comment
Date:
Fri, 27
Sep 2002 23:41:03 -0400
From:
"Jason Somrak"
<somsakrecords@hotmail.com>
To:
bob
this email is from this comment, "Can only write DVD-R(General) disk. Not sure if this will work with a PS2. Thanks alot RIAA and MPAA!! (Stupid copyright protection schemes and stupid American monopolies)"
RIAA and MPAA are protecting, Artists, You're pissed off because you cant "steal something that is not yours" you didnt create it, its not yours, and i'm sure if you had a huge blockbuster smash you would not want people burning it. A prime example of this is, when picasso or any other painting artist for that matter made a masterpiece, people dont steal it or expect to get it for free. These are all peoples jobs. People like you who keep undercutting the business will fuck it up big time. If artists arent making any money because of thieves like you then they will stop and the quality of music and passion of it will go down the drain, just because you and people like you cant learn the american value of getting 15 bucks and buying something, not stealing it. can you live with yourself knowing you are stealing from people. How would you like it man if you wrote up a plan for work and someone took it from you and passed it on as theirs and you got no credit or the extra pay or what have you. you'd be pissed and rightfully so thats why you shouldnt do it to others, karma, what goes around comes around. it would fuckin suck if there was no music ehh.. well thats were heading thanks to people like you who are decietful and canieving. Dont even bother to respond to me because i dont have time to read your stupid reason for doing it.
My response to this email was (I presume that Jason won't read it):
Subject:
Stealing has nothing to do with it RE:
comment
Date:
Sat, 28
Sep 2002 16:20:03 -0400
From:
Bob
To:
"Jason Somrak"
<somsakrecords@hotmail.com>
Hi,
I feel a need to respond to your email even though you said
not to, and you may not even read this.
I'm not sure why you felt the need to vent so much anger (and
profanity) at me. I will explain why I'm so mad at the RIAA, MPAA,
DCMA, et al.
First, I do not rip or steal music. I quit buying albums
about the same time that the music industry forced everyone to switch to
CDs. I think that the last album that I bought was a Judas Priest
album (I like heavy metal, which seems to be out of fashion right now).
All music released in the last 15 years is crap, I wouldn't even waste
a 25 cent CD-R on any of it.
Second, I do not steal movies. I can't remember the last
time that I went to a theater and I refuse to get cable for my TV because
everything coming out of Hollywood is crap (ok, I've thought about getting
cable for A&E and The History Channel...)
The reason that I don't like all of the copy controls is because
they make it very hard for me to burn DVDs of my home movies and video
experiments for distribution to friends and family. All of these
patents, controls, and formats make it very hard just to make a DVD that
my friends can watch on their Sony PS2. (I'm also pissed at Sony
about their PS2 and it's DVD playing capability).
I create my own content. I have a (legally purchased)
Sony DV camcorder, a (legally purchased) Pioneer DVD burner, a (legally
purchased) Sunblade, and a (legally purchased) Apple PowerMac (with a SuperDrive
(a Pioneer A03 DVD-R/W)) with (legally purchased) iMovie and Final Cut
Pro. Why shouldn't I be able to create DVDs for my (legally
purchased) PS2???
-bob
I sent Jason's email to a buddy of mine who works in the recording/media industry and this is what he had to say about this (hey, I'm open minded, maybe I'm wrong for trying to burn my home movies onto DVDs for distribution to friends and family...):
Hi,
Ouch. That was some flame you got on the end of there. I would only
have written back and asked what the emailer's profession is. i.e is he
a musician? artist? Moreover (funny hat on) does he realise that by using
hotmail for commercial purposes he
1) assigns copyright to hotmail,
2) is violating his TOS?
I guess this is a small record shop or home studio artist guy, based
on his email address, tho' i may well be wrong.
Pirating _has_ put a number of people out of business, but mostly small classical composers, as far as I can personally attest. A good friend of mine wanted to release several recordings he paid to make some 15 years back (he has an expensively created private archive which includes some now mature and popular opera singers) but even though only a couple A&R demos were ever sent out when originally recorded, the whole thing could be found on kazaa, a fact brought to his atention by someone he contacted to get feedback on a possible release. If you have an expected sales of a few hundred copies a year, in a very niche market, that's killer.
The RIAA, PRS et.al. are in business for themselves, just as any large insitution is primarily in the business of self - perpetuation. Merton Miller, the renowned economist makes a big deal of this tendency and writes eloquently about the moral hazard cost asscoaieted with "representative" organisations, albeit in a different context.
Take the PRS - Performing Rights Society, who have a effective government allocated monopoly on performance royalty collections in the UK. Two or so years go, they stopped a 2% bonus "subsidy" for classical composers. Maybe that could have been stomached, allowing that the PRS bigwigs are all pop music guys. But they simultaneously said that the minimum hall capacity they would monitor increased from 100 seats to 500. Hardly any living classical composer sells 500 seat venues. Result : penury, composers loosing their houses . . . So the PRS and others protect the small guy? Tell me another one . . .
This guy's 'mail is really offensive. I don't see where he gets off onto copyright issues. Maybe he should spam the whole user base on Slashdot? Maybe he took your headline ". . . pain in the arse" to mean that you were promoting copying in itself - i.e. because you're demonstrative about the frustration of it all in the title, he might just have assumed that you were pushing a political angle, instead of simply adding a tech page about day to day DVD hassles ...
In my mind anyone who signs off "don't bother to reply" is committing a SPAM MUGGING or a hit and run. If someone called you on your home 'phone and yelled f**k you Rob" then hung up, you'd probably call the police. Maybe you should point out this similarity with the dude's actions.
The dude's arguments are far from lucid, but in the end this all devolves
into a sour - grapes outpouring. The "un-American" aintimations in the
text are unforgivable.
Did this dude _join_ the RIAA or the MPAA? Did he have _alternatives_?
That alternatives issue is all important. In the UK we have no, or no viable
alternative associations in music. Is that democratic? Is that American?
In all I conclude that the dude is way off, and probably has a real issue in looking at his own business objectively. More's the pity, it's his loss in the end.
Feel free to grab anything I scribbled above in a follow - up, should there be one. Or put my mail up on yor page, minus my address if you like.
<-- Deleted line with names in it -->
I wonder if you'll get any more such flames . . .
hope all's well,
- John