Resource Forks

What information is stored in the resource fork of digital images, ie JPG files?



I am stripping out the resource fork for some copies of my digital photos so that I can burn a CD that will play on my DVR. I've opened the digital photos(with the resource forks removed) with a number of applications such as Preview and Graphic Converter and I don't see any difference. Would photo printing be affected if I tried to print a digital photo with the resource fork removed.



What exactly are resource forks there for and what info is stored there?



Thanks in advance,

Doug