CD burn problems

[rnaphoto]

OK, so I tried using the CD burn function to burn about 830 MB of image files [Jpegs]. PM indicated that it would require 2 blank CD's. The first CD burned & verified. Then I put in the second- which burned & verified. I tried opening the second CD [which only had about 130 MB on it] on both Windows XP and MAC OS X. Files looked fine, and opened fine, but the sequence was from the middle of the 467  files- odd!  Then I tried to open the first CD, first on the MAC. It showed that there was 699MB on the CD! The files [001-467] had a big chunk of files out of the middle of the sequence- which were on the second CD. So this would be very confusing to a client, who would expect that logically the files should be in ascending order- not scattered somewhat randomly between the 2 CD's. Then I noticed that I couldn't scroll all the way down to the last 50 or so files. The CD drive hung, and I had to force quit. Also, I notice that on the MAC, some of the last files it showed were missing their desktop icons. So after force quitting, I tried the CD in a windows machine- same story- drive hung and I couldn't access the last 50 or so files. So, while this function would be a nice addition to PM, it doesn't seem to be usable. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Richard Anderson

[Kirk Baker]

OK, so I tried using the CD burn function to burn about 830 MB of image files [Jpegs]. PM indicated that it would require 2 blank CD's. The first CD burned & verified. Then I put in the second- which burned & verified. I tried opening the second CD [which only had about 130 MB on it] on both Windows XP and MAC OS X. Files looked fine, and opened fine, but the sequence was from the middle of the 467  files- odd!  Then I tried to open the first CD, first on the MAC. It showed that there was 699MB on the CD! The files [001-467] had a big chunk of files out of the middle of the sequence- which were on the second CD. So this would be very confusing to a client, who would expect that logically the files should be in ascending order- not scattered somewhat randomly between the 2 CD's. Then I noticed that I couldn't scroll all the way down to the last 50 or so files. The CD drive hung, and I had to force quit. Also, I notice that on the MAC, some of the last files it showed were missing their desktop icons. So after force quitting, I tried the CD in a windows machine- same story- drive hung and I couldn't access the last 50 or so files. So, while this function would be a nice addition to PM, it doesn't seem to be usable. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

It would help (and this goes for everyone) to know what OS you are running Photo Mechanic on, and what version of Photo Mechanic you are running?

You say that "there was 699MB on the CD!".  Is that the space used or unused?  Was the disc an 80 Minute disc?  If so, they have 700MB of space available.

Can you give me a sampling of the names of the photos?  How about listing the first ten or so, and then skip to the last 10 and list them too.  I'll try and duplicate your naming convention and try it out myself.

When writing and testing the feature, I regularly burned over 6 GB of photos at a time totaling about 4,000 images.  If it didn't work flawlessly for me during testing, I wouldn't have stopped working on it until it worked perfectly.

Please tell me as much pertinent information as you can think of to help me reproduce your situation.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[rnaphoto]

Kirk-

I'm using MAC OS 10.4.4- which I think is the latest update. The windows computer I tested the burned CD on is an updated version of XP. However I burned the CD's on the MAC using the latest version of PhotoMechanic-just updated it yesterday- version 4.4.3. The CD burner is whatever comes with a MAC G5 2.7 dual [super drive]. The blank CD had 700 MB total blank space. The files are named 06023[001] and run up to 06023[467], the sequence runs like this: 06023[001], 06023[002], 06023[003], etc.. The files are High res Jpegs- around 2.2 MB each on average, and open up to around 47MB in Photoshop. They have the normal desktop icons which were created in i-view [latest version 3.0.2]. They were converted from .dng files [which contained full size jpegs] in i-view. [I see that PhotoMechanic can extract the jpegs from .dng files also]. Normally we use Toast to burn CD's- and there are no issues other than having to create folders smaller than 700 MB ahead of time since the version of Toast I have doesn't automatically bridge across multiple CD's or DVD's. That feature is what I was hoping to get by using PhotoMechanic to burn CD's.

Regards,

Richard Anderson

[Kirk Baker]

Hello Richard,

I tried to duplicate the problem you reported but each time I try, I get a perfectly good set of discs, with no filenames out of place.  My Mac system is similar to yours: a Dual G5 (2 GHz instead of 2.7 GHz), Super Drive, Mac OS X (10.4.6 instead of 10.4.4)  My JPEGs were from a 20D and are 2.3 MB in size.  I used the same naming convention as you:

0623[001].JPG
0623[002].JPG
...

I burned at 16x with Verify on, did not choose to leave disc append-able.  I burned all of the files to the root of the disc with no parent folder hierarchy.

The discs worked fine in the Finder.  I could scroll through the entire contents without any hangs or pauses.

Do you have any other details that may help me reproduce this issue?

BTW, with the exception of the first sheet that drops down and lets you choose the name of the disc, the disc burning is all Apple's code and is the same system used to burn discs from the Finder.

Do you think it would help if I had your set of files?  Could you use Toast to burn them to disc and mail them to me?

Thanks,

-Kirk

[rnaphoto]

Kirk-

I have retested this with Cr2 files and with Jpegs. 2 discs and 3 discs. Seems to be working as advertised. Maybe the OS update from 10.4.4 to 10.4.6 did it.

Thanks,

Richard Anderson