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Basic disk burning with OS X 10.4's Burn Folder feature is reasonably straightforward. In a nutshell, in order to burn data on your hard drive onto a CD or DVD, you create a temporary folder on your desktop called a burn folder, then drag in file icons, which creates aliases of the original files which remain where they were, undisturbed. This beats the pants off having to drag or copy the actual files into a folder prior to burning like we used to have to do, and for routine disk burning it's all the software support you're likely to ever need if you don't mind using a fresh disk for each burn, likely only using a fraction of its capacity.
Actually, Mac OS X does support multi-session burns, but it’s not a really convenient process. You have to create a folder containing the files you want to add to your multi-session disc, open Disk Utility, choose File > New > “Disk Image from Folder”, select your new disk image and then “Images > Burn.” You will also end up with multiple disk icons on your Desktop when you insert the burned disk, which is inelegant and can be confusing.
While optical media is relatively cheap these days (although less so in Canada where the music pigopolists have convinced the government to impose an arbitrary "levy" - effectively an extra tax - on recordable media that is distributed to content creators, even though the media may be used for recording data that you have a perfect legal right to), wasting disk space just rubs me the wrong way, and also results in an increase of disk clutter. It's also an organizational advantage to be able to append subsequent burns to the same disk.
If you think you will be doing a lot of multisession burning, a more graceful and convenient solution than the one described above using Disk Copy is BurnAgain DVD, a demoware application by Thomas Bauer of Vienna, Austria, which makes burning multisession CDRs and DVDRs really easy.
BurnAgain DVD is the latest iteration of a formerly CD-only application that was called BurnAgain (and before that BurnItAgainSam), but now supports DVD+RW compatibility, although it of course still works with CDR and CDRW disks too. Note well however that there are four possible "flavors" of DVDs: DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW. Only DVD+RW and DVD-RW are currently supported by BurnAgain DVD.
With BurnAgain, you can easily add or update files on your already burned disk without creating the usual sort of confusing multisession disk that mounts multiple disk icons when inserted. BurnAgain DVD makes disk burning more like writing to a hard disk. It simply adds files to a disk several times without creating a volume for each session (but without erasing). BurnAgain DVD supports the use of Aliases and Tiger's "Burnable Folders".
Files or Folders that already exist on the disk will be evaluated automatically and newer files will be burned, overwriting the previous versions*. The name of your disk can be changed with each burn. At any time you can decide to start over and hide the content of previous sessions. During content collection, BurnAgain is capable of resolving aliases and supports using Burnable Folders in Tiger. To simplify the use of BurnAgain for backup purposes, each disk stores its own source setup and BurnAgain loads this setup when the disc is inserted.
The format of disks burned with BurnAgain DVD is also Windows and Linux compatible, and as a bonus BurnAgain DVD allows you to change the name of your disks at each burn if you wish. If you are using rewriteable media (CDRW or DVDRW), you can also use BurnAgain DVD to erase the media.
Technically speaking, BurnAgain DVD burns ISO9660 Joliet rock ridge standard CDRs that are readable on any platform. Although you can also use other programs to create a CDR that is then appendable by BurnAgain, the easiest way to do it is to use BurnAgain from the start.
Unfortunately, BurnAgain DVD can’t add files to closed disks that have been burned using the Finder or other CD-burning software. However, it can preserve resource forks if you install /Developer/Tools/SplitForks (part of the Developer Tools bundled with MacOSX.) For why this may be important, see below.
BurnAgainDVD can burn the same folder of files repeatedly, and will only write over files that have changed or files that have been added to the folder since the last burn, which is handy for backups. To simplify reburning of backups, BurnAgain DVD optionally stores what you want to burn on the disk and loads the configuration automatically when the disk is inserted. That way you can update the content of your disk with one click. One caveat is that BurnAgain DVD is suitable for burning disks that will be used for storing computer files (including music files), but not for making playable DVDs or audio CDs.
Thomas Bauer also offers SmartBackup "lightweight daily backup" software that is of course designed to work harmoniously with BurnAgain DVD. You can find out more about SmartBackup here:
http://freeridecoding.com/smartbackup/index.html
I found BurnAgain DVD to be a pleasingly intuitive and user-friendly application.
To burn a disk with BurnAgain DVD:
1. Start the Application
2. Add files or folders using drag&drop or the [+] button
You can add files and folders you want to burn to your disk by using:
- Drag&Drop onto the application window
- Drag&Drop onto the application icon (even if the application is not running)
- using the Add button and selecting one or multiple items in the Open dialog
If you want to remove items from the list, just select them and click remove or hit the "Backspace" or "Delete" key on your keyboard.
3. Insert a CDR, CDRW or DVDRW, that is appendable or blank
4. Optionally enter or modify the title of the disk
5. Click "Burn"
BurnAgain DVD will do its stuff. It will prepare the content for burning, burn the disk, then verify the disk.
If the disk was not empty and already contains items with equal names BurnAgain DVD will analyze which files have changed automatically and burn only new or changed files files to the disk overwriting older versions - files with the same names names on the RW disk will be replaced by the ones you are burning, pretty much the way it used to work with floppies in the old days.
After a disk has been burned, the application shows you how much space has been used and how much space is left on the disk. You can now add more files and burn again, with, as noted, all of the files appearing together under the same CD or DVD icon as if you had burned them at once.
If you check the "hide previously burned files" checkbox, the disk will only show the files added when the next burn has finished and look as if you would have used an empty disk.
In general only disks that are not "closed" are appendable. BurnAgain DVD cannot turn a closed disk into a appendable one. If an already burned disk is appendable or not, depends on what program you originally used to burn your CD-R and how you configured it.
Disks burned with the following Applications are for sure NOT appendable:
- Finder
- iTunes
Disks burned with the following Applications MIGHT be appendable:
- Toast
- Disk Copy
BurnAgain should only be used to append ISO9660 CD-Rs.
An option available in the application preferences panel lets you store latest burn item configuration on the disk. When it is enabled, BurnAgain DVD stores the items you selected for the recent burn on the disk in an invisible file. This setting will be reloaded automatically by BurnAgain DVD when you insert the media the next time. This is useful if you burn frequent updates of the same items. Enabling this option will then save you from having to add the same burn items each time.
I tested BurnAgain DVD with both my 1.33 GHz G4 PowerBook and my 550 MHz G4-upgraded Pismo PowerBook. I also tried burning a disk on one machine and then appending another burn using the other 'Book. BurnAgain DVD worked flawlessly throughout, the only distinction being how astonishingly faster the Fastmac 8x SuperDrive in the Pismo is compared with the 2x unit in the 17" AlBook. I found this program fast, slick, and a pleasure to use.
Resource forks are a special feature of the HFS filesystem that was used under Mac OS 9 and earlier. For Mac OS X, developers are advised not to rely on resource forks any more. Unfortunately resource forks are still used by a few applications to store their data.
Files that will be broken of there is no resource fork are for instance:
- text and URL clippings
- 4D data files
The ISO9660 filesystem that is used by BurnAgain for Windows compatibility does not support resource forks and the resource forks of your files will not be burnt onto the CDR in the standard setup.
Actually there is a way to store resource forks on an ISO Filesystem by using a special format (which simply stores the resource fork in an additional invisible file). BurnAgain DOES support using this trick using a tool provided with the Mac OS X developer tools. You have to install it yourself. BurnAgain will automatically detect if this tool is present and use it.
To get this resource fork support you need to install:
/Developer/Tools/SplitForks
which comes with your developer tools.
BurnAgain features in summary:
- all files in one CD icon
- incremental updating
- resolves aliases
- support for burnable folders
- supports CDR and CDRW
- optionally hide previous sessions
- supports resource forks
- change CD name with each burn
- Windows compatible format
- use your CDR until it is full
- be able to add small files
- find all files in one CDR icon
New in version 1.2:
- support for DVD-RW
- several bugfixes and improvements
BurnAgain DVD comes with a concise but helpful online help manual, and as I said, it’s so intuitive and elegantly simple to use, you probably won’t need much help anyway.
System Requirements:
- Intel or PPC Mac
- 10.3 or later for CD burning
- 10.4 or later DVDRW burning
- Apple supported Writer (internal/FW)
- ready for Leopard
Features summary:
- add files into same volume
- burn only new/changed files
- change disk title at each burn
- resolves aliases
- supports burnable folders
- hide previously burned files
- preserves resource forks
- platform independent format
- usable with CD,CDR
- usable with DVD+RW,DVD-RW
Format:
BurnAgain DVD burns an ISO9660 rock ridge filesystem. Disks need to have that standard and must not be closed in order to be appendable by BurnAgain DVD. Deletion of individual files is not possible.
Each session added requires a session overhead up to a few MB. When burning DVD-RW the "size used" shows an allocated size that may not yet be used entirely by the content.
Media:
- CDR, CDRW
- DVD+RW,DVD-RW
BurnAgain DV D license prices:
Single 17 Euro (USD 22.80)
Family Pack 34 Euro (USD 45.60)
For more information, visit:
http://freeridecoding.com/burnagaindvd/
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Charles W. Moore
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