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Important: Before removing any written file from your harddisc, insure that the written CD-R contains the file correctly. Therefore you may use FileMerge.app or the UNIX command `diff'. |
Notice: Many CD writers cannot read the CD-Rs which they have written before. To test the usability of the medium you should use another CD-ROM drive.
Depending on the used type of CD writer, the write mode can be set to Track-at-once (TAO) or Disk-at-once (DAO). In general you will use Track-at-once.
Select the speed to write the CD-R. The maximum speed depends on the content and on your system configuration. You should try low writing speeds first and increase when you got familiar with writing CD-Rs. If you write CDs on-the-fly, you should always select a low writing speed.
`Test Write Only' will switch off the laser while writing a CD-R. You will need to insert an empty CD-R to test the writing but no data will be written to it. Note: Some devices are not able to simulate the fixation, so fixating a written CD-R may fail even if the simulation succeeded.
`Test before Writing' will simulate the process of writing. After a successful test the CD-R will be written. Therefore the device may open and close the tray between the simulation and the writing automatically.
`Test after Writing' verifies the media physically after writing which takes a long time and is not supported by most devices. A successful verification does not guarantee the correctness of the CD-R.
Each writer has an image cache to store the raw image to be written. The cache can be activated for data and audio track separately and will be needed if the data to be written cannot be sent to the device fast enough. If a track is cached once, the cached version will be used, whenever you write it again even if caching is disabled.
For example: You have set up the Data-CD's content and start a test write with caching enabled. The image will be built to the cache and the CDDesigner will test the writing of the cached track. After completion you start to write the CD. The image will not be built again but the cached track will be used.
Tracks are identified by name and modification date, the image will be built again whenever you change the document's content.
Writing a CD on-the-fly is done by switching off the image cache. You have to test if your computer is fast enough to provide the data continuously. Note: Lots of small files will take more time to be processed than several large files.
Storing your private data in the cache is save because only the superuser is able to read it.
If your systems starts to swap memory, writing may fail. This happens if you build very large images on a machine with less RAM. In this case you should enable caching and start a test write: Typically test writing will fail due to a buffer underrun. Now you should save the document, terminate CDDesigner and start it again. Open the saved document and try test writing again. On success you can then write the CD.
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