[timskywalker]

Hi !

I'm trying to find out whether Toast is capable of burning multisession data DVD discs. Is it able to do that ?

If yes, will these discs be Mac-only or will they be readable by a Windows and/or Linux PC ?

Are other versions of Toast, like Toast Lite (version 6 or 7 - if there is such a thing as Toast 7 Lite), capable of doing the same thing ?

[John at Roxio]

As far as i know there really isnt a universal standard for multisession DVD. Last I knew that was the reason Toast didnt have any kind of Multisession DVD support.

[timskywalker]

Thanks for the quick reply. DVD discs written in the UDF format ( http://en.wikipedia....sal_Disk_Format ) should be able to have several sessions written to them, at least with some revisions/variants. However, according to the same article, Mac OS X 10.4.5 will not mount UDF discs with a VAT, and the only way to bun multisession DVDs seems to use UDF with a VAT (don't ask me what this means) ... looks like I answered my own question :-(

My problem is that a former Windows user has asked on Apple Discussions ( http://discussions.a...threadID=419215 ) why he couldn't write multisession data DVDs on his new PM G5, and claims that he was able to do so on his Windows PC.

[John at Roxio]

Yeah, there are ways to write multisession DVDs, there is just no standard for reading it. So where and when it works is very touch and go. As far as I know macs dont support it at all, so Roxio would look dumb if they allowed customers to write a disc they couldn't read in the same computer that wrote it.

[timskywalker]

"bump" !

Hi again, while frenchtoastwithjam's replies were quite helpful in understanding the situation about DVDs, multisession and the Mac, I'd like more infromation from other ppl, preferably from users who have already tried to burn such discs. Any thoughts/ideas/comments ?

[freshburn]

DVD Multi-session does not work on the Mac (and not well on the PC at that either). If you have important data to burn, multi-session is a bad idea.

[timskywalker]

OK thanks. I kind of hoped that someone would come up with good news, but it looks like it won't happen.

Thanks to both of you for your replies.

[pampelune]

It is absolutely possible to write multisession DVD+RW (or DVD+R I guess)

Just use Dragon Burn instead of Toast 7.

It is really reliable. I just don't understand why Toast can't do the same...

This is why I use Dragon Burn for data backup, and not Toast.

[freshburn]

DragonBurn doesn't do true multi-session, because true multi-session DVD do not work on the Mac. Every release of DragonBurn as removed more and more functionality from their DVD multi-session.

I believe this is also limited to DVD+RW and DVD-RW and also as limitations for the format. Use at your own risk. If you are only using DVD+RW or -RW, it is best to just copy the old and new data to a new DVD. Always do full erase, because to many quick erase and writes will wipe out the TOC and the data will be lost.

[pampelune]

Well, thanks for the advice, but i've used it about 100 times on the samed DVD without problems so far

[freshburn]

Good for you. I hope your luck continues. I just tried burning 3 session with DragonBurn. Session 3 is not usable at all, and I got a crash when trying to burn the first one.

And if you have burned 100 times to the same DVD+RW, I strongly suggest you copy that data to a new disc if it is of any importance. You stand a good chance of that disc going bad.

[pampelune]

Did you try on a DVD+ ? RW or R ?

[freshburn]

DVD+RW

[pampelune]

Hmm, well thanks for the information