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MakeDisc Overview

MakeDisc allows users to format data files to generate a CD or DVD disc image. MakeDisc is the software at the heart of many Young Mind's products such as CD Studio, DVD Studio and MPS4+.

The software premasters your data. During the premastering process, data can be converted to a form compliant with the ISO 9660 standard, UDF requirements, or other format. Premastering your data to comply with widely recognized disc formats results in a CD or DVD that can be read on the greatest number of computer systems. MakeDisc provides transparent recovery of original UNIX file names, directories, and symbolic links. The graphical user interface makes it easy for users to format and test disc images. MakeDisc runs on 27 UNIX platforms including Sun, SGI, HP, Digital UNIX, SCO, DG, IBM, Linux, and Unisys, as well as some Windows operating systems.

MakeDisc runs from the command line, a Motif Graphical User Interface (GUI), or a Java GUI. The GUI lets you select premastering options from a series of three intuitive windows: the Main window, the Flags (or Options) window, and the Volume Information window. MakeDisc provides on-line help for each of these windows.

The Main window lets you specify the location of:

The MakeDisc program
The temporary work directory used during the premastering process
The data to premaster
Where to send the image: either to the local host or to a remote host

The Volume Information window lets you specify the information stored in the primary volume descriptor, an area required by the ISO 9660 standard. This information includes:

The type of system that will use the disc
The names of the copyright and bibliography files
The creation date and time
The publisher name

The Options window lets you specify the premastering options. These include:

Rock Ridge support
ISO 9660 compliance
Automatic file and directory name conversion to ensure ISO compliance
ONR (Original Name Recovery)
Symbolic link support

There are additional options that let you customize MakeDisc's error and warning reporting functions during the premastering process.

Once you have specified the premastering options, you can save them in a configuration file. This file contains your premastering options so you can quickly premaster another data set using the same set of options. The command line implementation lets you quickly specify the base directory and the premastering selections through a series of flags. For automated recording of CDs and DVDs, use the command line version of MakeDisc in a custom shell script.

Our functional overview gives you more technical information on how MakeDisc works.