1. CDRECORD or DVDwrite, which one is better?

    Answer:

    It depends on! Both have their strengths.

    CDRECORD is an exellent tool for CD-recording but you cannot use CDRECORD for DVD burning.

    DVDwrite only produces DATA-CD/DVD (mode 1), because this is the only format OpenVMS can handle for data.

  2. Which filesystem is the best CD in an multi-platform environment?

    Answer:

    OpenVMS heavily uses three filesystems: ODS2, ODS5 (Alpha only?) and ISO9660. A PC-CD uses long filenames whereas OpenVMS only handles them in 8.3 file convention.

    If you want to preserve all OpenVMS file attributes, zip your OpenVMS directory tree with "-V" or produce a backup-saveset. Use 8.3 names here

    (i.e. DATA1.ZIP or MYFILES2.BCK)! Put this single file into a ISO9660-container file with mkisofs and burn this container file.

  3. Howto copy DATA-CD/DVD?

    Answer:

    DVDwrite does it in one step:

    $ mount/foreign <source-device>

    $ dvdwrite /write <source-device> <target-device>

    In case of using CDRECORD you have to copy the contents of your source into a scratch-file.