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CD-ROM Recording with OS/2- by Chris Williams

In an earlier review I wrote about the hardware solution we put together in my office for recording CD-ROMs (CDs). To summarize, the first step in having a reliable CD recording solution is to get the most powerful system you can reasonably put together.

Now it's time to introduce the world of recording CDs in OS/2. As it turns out, this is a good news/bad news story fraught with all the controversies and standards wars the rest of the PC industry knows so well. Recording your own CDs is still almost as much an art as it is a science. And there is no substitute for finding good sources of information.

Record a CD?

So why would anybody want to record their own CDs? Lots of reasons! They range from a very inexpensive way to do data archival and backup, to an easy way to distribute software, to mastering your own set of favorite songs. (But be careful of copyright laws!) In our case, distributing customized software packages to different places quickly and easily was the driving force. Have you ever tried to move several hundred megabytes of data between two PCs connected by a relatively slow wide area network? How about moving large amounts of data between PCs with no network connecting them at all? That means either a lot of diskettes, a few Zip disks, or one good CD recorder.

Why should you use such a "hot" machine for this? At present, recording your own CDs is not just as simple as copying files to a drive. It is a complicated process which requires that all of the data you wish to write to the CD is properly prepared and then sent to the recorder in a constant manner. This process can not be interrupted. Most CD recorders have hardware buffers built in to handle short interruptions in the flow of data to the CD, but once this is exhausted, the recording process will fail. (A failure caused by the buffers in the recorder being exhausted before the process is finished is called a "Buffer Underrun". This is one of the most notorious errors known when it comes to recording CDs.)

Obviously a true multitasking operating system can provide a significant advantage in maintaining a constant flow of data to the CD recorder. But even here, if the recording process is interrupted by something else (like heavy disk swapping) for a long enough period of time, buffer underruns will occur. This normally results in a CD which is suitable as a nice wall decoration or perhaps a coaster. You don't usually get a second chance with a recordable CD once an attempt to record has failed. And at an average cost of $9 each, the price of failure can get expensive in a hurry.

High performance PCs, with lots of RAM, cache and disk space, run faster and can handle more workload. Individual processes tend not to get interrupted as frequently, or for as long, compared to slower systems. This means you'll wind up with fewer computer "conversation pieces" and a lot of money saved over time.

Some Basics

Just like any other type of media that contains data, CD information is arranged in a file system. When you buy one of these disks from the store and put it in your CD-ROM drive, the computer reads tracks of data just like it does when reading from a floppy disk or your hard drive. Unlike magnetic media, the file systems on CDs are designed to be read by the laser(s) in your CD-ROM drive. Just as with magnetic media, there's more than one CD file system to choose from -- and the "standards wars" over CD file systems have a familiar ring to OS/2 users.

OS/2 uses an Installable File System (IFS) driver for reading CDs. If your OS/2 system has a CD-ROM drive, your CONFIG.SYS file should have several entries in it that will include something like: 

DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\OS2CDROM.DMD /Q
IFS=C:\OS2\BOOT\CDFS.IFS /Q
DEVICE=C:\OS2\MDOS\VCDROM.SYS
The file CDFS.IFS is the actual CD file system driver for OS/2 and is capable of recognizing most of the common CD file systems in use today -- with a couple of exceptions. When you start recording CDs, you need to pay close attention to which file system you are using. The most common ones found today are:

The Hardware and Software

The next step in recording your own CDs is finding a good CD recorder and software. There are lots of choices in OS/2 supported hardware. That's the good news. The Yamaha CDR series is still recognized as best of breed in recorders, but the prices also reflect this. Other brands include Phillips, Sony, and Teac just to name a few. While IDE recorders are also available, the best reliability still comes from a SCSI system with either an on-board or PCI bus SCSI controller.

In my particular case, I decided to go with the Yamaha CDR400 external unit. Warp 4 will also recognize this device as a SCSI CD-ROM drive, so you can do more than just record with it. The CDR400 also supports packet writing and has a generous 2MB hardware buffer which Yamaha claims virtually eliminates those costly "Buffer Underrun" errors mentioned earlier.

In terms of OS/2 based CD-Recording software, the choices have become quite limited. That's the bad news. In months of searching, I found only two OS/2 based CD-Recording software products. Worse, both of them were out of date compared to their Win32 based counterparts. The last straw was that one of them faded into oblivion as I was evaluating software. The two candidates I looked at were Gear for OS/2 by Elektroson, and Unite CD Maker from Cirrus Technologies.

I first downloaded Gear from the Elektroson Web site a few months ago and ran the installation program. It crashed almost instantly, refusing to install. After a bit more poking around on their web site, I found an update to the installation program that claimed to prevent the crash during installation, so I downloaded this part and followed the instructions for installation again. The installation program continued to promptly and consistently crash. I was never able to get Gear for OS/2 to install on my Warp 4 system, and as time passed, I watched constant and consistent updates to their software for virtually every other operating system except OS/2. Most recently, Gear for OS/2 has disappeared from their web site completely. One can only assume that they have decided to look for "greener pastures" in the "Land of Gates". So much for getting in Gear...

As far as installation is concerned, my other candidate, Unite CD Maker for OS/2, fared much better. The demo version of the software installed correctly on my system the first time. After evaluating it for a while, I ordered a license for myself. Overall, Unite CD Maker lives up to its billing and does everything it says. I have only found a couple of problems with this package (and not all of them are technical).

First, the OS/2 version of Unite is still at 2.1, while the Win32 version has gone on to version 3. Second, my nice, new Yamaha CDR400 was not supported by Unite out of the box. This has changed with version 2.1c which was just released, literally, a few days ago. Fortunately, an upgrade for my version (2.1b) has also been released to support the Yamaha and bring the software level to 2.1c. It is available for the price of the connect time to download it. My new Yamaha works well with the software given the short time I've had to look at it.

Getting it on Disk

Unite uses a two step process for getting files from a hard disk to CD. First, you create a special folder called a CD Stage. The CD Stage is one of several SOM objects Unite registers at installation. This folder provides all of the information about the CD you are going to create including volume and author information, comments, which file system to use, and shadows of the files to be copied. The next step is to create a virtual CD Image file from the CD Stage. This is a single file which is more or less on the same level as an image file of a floppy disk which has the disk information stored as tracks and sectors. The image file is then used to create the actual CD. Unite also allows you to create a CD directly from a CD Stage. When you do this, the virtual CD image file is built in memory on the fly and then written to the CD. Unite handles each of these tasks on separate threads.

My only technical problem has been with copying large numbers of files (hundreds of megabytes) from a CD Stage directly to a CD. It only works reliably if I create a CD image file first. I'm hoping that Cirrus Technologies' technical support team will come through for me here. They've been quite responsive so far, and believe the problem may be related to my SCSI controller. Before upgrading to the 2.1c level, I had to use a somewhat older Smart & Friendly CDR4000 Pro from another machine as a substitute. This Smart & Friendly is really a Yamaha CDR100 on the inside, and it works with Unite with very few problems.

Unite for OS/2 supports ISO levels 1 and 2 as well as HPFS on CDs. This is a nice feature for OS/2 specific applications as you have the full HPFS character set to work with. Just be careful if DOS or other operating systems need to read CDs created with HPFS. Once you exceed the name length limits of other platforms, they won't be able to read the long names. The result is the same as a DOS session ignoring long names on your HPFS hard drive.

One of the nicest features of Unite is that you can configure an additional software buffer space to help prevent those nasty buffer underruns. Like most newer CD recording packages, a test burn mode is also supported to lower the number of trashed CDs you're likely to produce. Unfortunately, many new features and file formats like CD to CD copying, Disc-at-Once, and packet writing are not supported in version 2.1. Most only become available in version 3, which leads me to another unfortunate situation.

The last word I had from Cirrus is that they have no firm plans to upgrade the OS/2 version of Unite to be on par with the Win32 version. They cite lack of interest as the cause. After a few conversations with both sales and technical support people, it is clear that this is purely a financial business decision.

On the plus side, they did say that if they saw enough demand for it, they would reconsider upgrading the OS/2 product. On the other hand, they did offer to sell me the Windows version now if I'd prefer; an offer I politely refused. As it now seems they are pretty much the only game in town for OS/2 based CD recording, maybe something could be done to spur their interest. Telling them you would pay money for an OS/2 version that had the same features as the Windows version, for example, (and then doing it) would be a good place to start.

On the interesting side, I got a hint that they've been writing quite a bit of Java code lately. Could a Java version of Unite be around the corner? I've had no official answer either way and Cirrus has more in its product catalog than just Unite, but who knows? Java just might be the thing to turn the OS/2 application shortage around after all.

With the release of 2.1c, Cirrus is now selling Unite as a version 3 package that comes with both the Win32 (version 3) and OS/2 (version 2.1c) flavors in one box. It's available through most of the popular OS/2 software resellers.

Sorting It All Out

As you can see, there's a lot to consider when it comes to making your own CDs. OS/2 adds some definite challenges and benefits not found in other platforms. The amount of CD recording information available on-line is still aimed mostly at very technical people. That's a reflection of the newness of the idea of making your own CDs. This area of computing is still in its infancy, so be prepared for lots of changes and innovations if you decide to jump into it.

Prices on CD recorders are dropping constantly, and this market is certain to heat up over the next year or so. It is only a matter of time before optical media will replace magnetic media as the preferred method of storing all computer information, so if you want to be on the bleeding edge, the time to get familiar is now.

* * *

Chris Williams has been actively involved with OS/2 systems for the past six years. A former IBM employee, OS/2 Ambassador, and long time member of Team OS/2, he is currently a PC and network specialist for Perot Systems Corporation.


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