xorriso: Media
3 Media types and states
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There are two families of media in the MMC standard:
*Multi-session media* are CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+R/DL, BD-R, and
unformatted DVD-RW. These media provide a table of content which
describes their existing sessions. See command *-toc*.
Similar to multi-session media are DVD-R DL and minimally blanked
DVD-RW. They record only a single session of which the size must be
known in advance. 'xorriso' will write onto them only if command -close
is set to "on".
*Overwriteable media* are DVD-RAM, DVD+RW, BD-RE, and formatted DVD-RW.
They offer random write access but do not provide information about
their session history. If they contain one or more ISO 9660 sessions
and if the first session was written by 'xorriso', then a table of
content can be emulated. Else only a single overall session will be
visible.
DVD-RW media can be formatted by -format "full". They can be made
unformatted by -blank "deformat".
Regular files and block devices are handled as overwriteable media.
Pipes and other writeable file types are handled as blank multi-session
media.
These media can assume several states in which they offer different
capabilities.
*Blank* media can be written from scratch. They contain no ISO image
suitable for 'xorriso'.
Blank is the state of newly purchased optical media. With used CD-RW
and DVD-RW it can be achieved by action -blank "as_needed".
Overwriteable media are considered blank if they are new or if they have
been marked as blank by 'xorriso'. Action -blank "as_needed" can be
used to do this marking on overwriteable media, or to apply mandatory
formatting to new media if necessary.
*Appendable* media accept further sessions. Either they are MMC
multi-session media in appendable state, or they are overwriteable media
which contain an ISO image suitable for 'xorriso'.
Appendable is the state after writing a session with command -close off.
*Closed* media cannot be written. They may contain an ISO image
suitable for 'xorriso'.
Closed is the state of DVD-ROM media and of multi-session media which
were written with command -close on. If the drive is read-only hardware
then it will probably show any media as closed CD-ROM or DVD-ROM.
Overwriteable media assume this state in such read-only drives or if
they contain unrecognizable data in the first 32 data blocks.
Read-only drives may or may not show session histories of multi-session
media. Often only the first and the last session are visible.
Sometimes not even that. Command -rom_toc_scan might or might not help
in such cases.
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