Whatever Happened to Packet Writing?

squidthing · June 20, 2005 1:48PM

I've been searching for info on UDF, Spared UDF, Roxio DirectCD and Packet Writing on Mac OS X. As far as I can tell, there is no way of editing a CD-RW as I would a zip disk. All talk of this technology just disappeared 3 years ago.

Is there seriously no way of doing this on Mac OS at all, when it appears to be a basic task on Windows? It just seems pathetic and ridiculous that I have to completely erase a CD just to edit one file - like the sort of impractical technology that should have become obsolete years ago. Mac OS X won't even copy the contents of the disk back into the image, or let me burn multiple sessions (without creating my own images and burning trough disk utility.

If so, why is Mac OS X's CD writing ability so stuck in the past? And why does no one seem to care. Or, why did this technology never get off the ground?

If not, how can I get my hands on some software that will let me do this? - as it would make my life a lot easier, even if my CDs were incompatible with everyone else's computers.

Andrew

squidthing · June 20, 2005 1:54PM

I have just found a utility called DiskBlaze, it says it can burn in some flavour of UDF - but this requires 10.4, which is interesting. I don't have 10.4 yet so I won't be able to test this though. Still, looks promising.

Andrew

curiousuburb · June 20, 2005 4:10PM

Toast Titanium is/has long been the überburner tool for the Mac.

thinkingdifferent · June 20, 2005 8:50PM

I've found it interesting that Apple never built the ability to burn multi-session CDs natively.

junkyard dawg · June 21, 2005 1:57AM

Same here. It seems very peculiar to me that OS X cannot burn multisession CDs. I've wondered if Apple made some sort of agreement with Roxio to hobble CD burning in the OS X Finder so that Roxio can keep developing products for OS X. The thing is, Apple doesn't seem to hesitate when it comes to stepping on the toes of other developers - even Adobe!

One would think that Steve Jobs would want a truly elegant solution to CD burning on OS X, beyond even multisession CDs. For example, why wouldn't Jobs want to be able to use a CD-RW just as he would a floppy disk, all done transparently by the Finder?

This is the one area I know of where Windows totally hammers OS X. It's a big issue for Mac users who are not tech savvy and find burning data CDs in Toast too confusing.

sunilraman · June 21, 2005 8:12AM

if you ask me, UDF and packet writing is now gone the way of the dodo. i am not sure why windows users would still enjoy it, unless, like myself you were into UDF and packet writing in the mid-to-late-90s when CD-writing was in vogue.

with the advent of DVD-R, DVD-RW, thumbdrives, iPods, and a whole other smattering of portable usb and firewire external disks, the wait and hassle of CD-burning is slowly dying off.

perhaps i am generalising too much, but maybe people (like myself) like it just to pull several fresh CDRWs every month or so to have stuff on optical media backup ? ( i imagine it would survive a fire or water damage or lightning better than hard drives, internal or external )

otherwise i much more frequently and efficienty and enjoyably backup to iDisk (small critical stuff), .Mac (essential personal stuff), iPod (my teaching materials), and the Beast (160gb fw400 external drive)

towards the end of the year i'd probably get into researching an external FW400 5.25" enclosure for a juicy Pioneer fast DVD-RW (for optical backing up of critical files) and DVD-R dual layer (for backing up DVDs) burner.

personally, i sympathise with your frustrations, hopefully shareware or Roxio can solve your Mac UDF / packet writing issues... i feel apple was wise to not focus to much resources on it in Tiger and Panther

\

edit: also: broadband, internet cafes, webmail, eg, gMail with 2gb and counting, backing up is getting easier for the average consumer .. we trust great big anonymous machines scattered across the globe with all our information now. and ONE DAY THEY WILL BECOME SELF-AWARE..!!!!

oh shit paranoid attack....

heh... just kidding.

what's that iBook? you want me to put my hand in this wall socket?

won't that electrocute me?

no? oh, you want me to merge with your global internet-enabled consciousness?

.........................

hmm

squidthing · June 21, 2005 11:46AM

I've never used a Mac with a DVD rewriter - do DVD±RW in Mac OS X support this kind of random access? Or do they also have to be erased and rewritten?

I do also have an FTP server and FireWire HD for backups but it would just be nice to be able to put things on a CD to give to people without it being such a major task.

I will look at toast, and I've found some software that is a little more versatile than the Finder.

Andrew

ast3r3x · June 21, 2005 1:20PM

I thought you can do multi session CD's if you check the "leave appendable."

squidthing · June 21, 2005 4:19PM

Yes. I have discovered multi-session burning. This is quite useful and a step in the right direction, even more useful is a piece of software called BurnItAgainSam, which creates joined sessions, so small incremental burns can be made without appearing as separate sessions.

However this is still far from the abilities that I think Windows XP has. Where files and directories can be added, deleted, renamed, rearranged, moved in and out of other directories, just as on any other type of read/write storage device. Does anyone have any experience of this, and how true it is?

For example there's some discrepancy as to whether or not files erased using this method can have their space reclaimed for storage, or whether they are just hidden by deleting their references.

Andrew

xool · June 21, 2005 8:12PM

I've never once used a rewritable CD. While I used multi-session burns in the past, it was mainly when CD-Rs were more expensive. Now that I can get a spindle for next to nothing, its simpler to burn another disk than to try and use 100% of every disc I've got.

aprilhare · April 13, 2013 2:54AM

Well, it is 2013.

We all moved on to external harddisks, USB or memory cards.

It appears that packet writing has disappeared, despite the availability of up to 128 GB Bluray optical media. Why?

What was wrong with this idea?

I can purchase a rewritable 25 GB BD-RE disc but just can't get the sort of writability that someone with a 8 GB flash disk can get. - (The pricing is such that the BD-RE is actually more than competitive when comparing the price of a 32 GB USB flash disk!)

Does anyone have the appetite for the challenge to implement packet writing for Mac (or PC for that matter)? It appears there is no current software that does the trick anymore.

supernova777 · October 11, 2014 1:23AM

Well it is 2014.

I want to use an optical drive as a hard drive. integrated with finder.

DVD-RAM is the technology for you if this is what you want.

but this technology is quietly phased out over the last 10 years in USA + North America.

But.. its still "Big in JAPAN" where samurais lurk clutching their swords.. wasting not thier optical media... reusing + reburning... write once is not in the japanese vocabulary.

they have all the 12x DVD-RAM media and they arent sharing.

Cartridge loading DVD-RAM are skillfully loaded with chopsticks.

http://www.oldschooldaw.com/forums/index.php?topic=400.0

Whatever Happened to Packet Writing?

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