DVD Demystified

Essentials of DVD Production
ever, an operating system has no guarantee that it will be able to correctly
display a given Unicode character.
To provide better compatibility with operating systems such as Windows
95, DOS, and Unix that are unable to read the UDF file system on DVD volumes,
Microsoft recommends that DVD image formatting software, including
DVD-Video and DVD-Audio authoring systems, implement the Joliet
extensions to allow long filenames within the ISO 9660 file system. Long
filename support is especially important to publishers putting legacy software
onto DVD-ROM volumes.
The Joliet extensions to ISO 9660 provide for filenames longer than 30
characters and for the Unicode character set in file and directory names.
The use of Joliet extensions does not violate the DVD specification or the
Micro UDF specification. Standardized directory names of VIDEO_TS and
AUDIO_TS and the standardized names of files within these directories follow
the 8.3 filename limitations, but these limitations do not apply outside
of the video zone and audio zone.
Joliet applies only to the ISO 9660 section of the UDF bridge format and
is independent of UDF, which has its own provisions for long file names.
Windows 98 and Windows 2000 use UDF and do not read the ISO 9660 portion
of UDF bridge DVDs. The intent behind using Joliet extensions with
DVD volumes is to make them behave more like today’s CD-ROMs when
used with an OS that recognizes Joliet but does not recognize UDF.
The UDF file system also supports Macintosh resource fork, including
file creator and file type information. The authoring system or DVD-ROM
formatting software must be able to recognize Macintosh file information in
order to preserve it for UDF formatting. On a Windows-based authoring
system, software that supports Macintosh files, such as PC MacLAN from
Miramar Systems, is needed.
It’s possible to make a bootable DVD-ROM. The Micro UDF spec specifically
forbids boot records, but most computers don’t look for UDF boot
records, they look for ISO 9660 boot records according to the El Torito specification.
Very few authoring systems and DVD-ROM formatting utilities
can create a bootable disc. If you need this capability you may even have to
produce a DVD-ROM image and modify it by hand to create the boot sector
before writing the image disc or DLT.
Bit Budgeting
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Bit budgeting on DVD-ROM is a breeze compared to DVD-Video or DVD-
Audio. You just add up all the file sizes and see if they fit on a disc; however,
a few potential pitfalls might arise. Don’t forget the difference between