Process
To burn an optical disc, one usually first creates an optical disc image with a full file system designed for the optical disc, and then copies the image to the disc. The disc image is a single file, built and stored on the hard drive, which contains all the information to be contained on the disc.
Most optical disc authoring utilities create a disc image and copy it to the disc in one bundled operation, so that end-users often do not know the distinction. However, a useful motivation for learning this distinction is that creating the disc image is an expensive (time-consuming) process, while copying the image takes relatively little time.
After copying a disc image, most disc burning applications silently delete the image from the Temporary folder in which it was built. Users can override this default, instructing the application to preserve the image. The existing image can then be used for creating further copies, rather than needing to be rebuilt each time.
There are also packet-writing applications that do not require writing the entire disc at once, but allow writing different parts at different times. This capability allows a disc to be constructed incrementally, as it could be on a rewritable medium like a floppy disk, subject to the limitation that a given bit on a non-rewritable disk can be written only once. Due to this limitation, a non-rewritable disc whose burn failed for any reason cannot be repaired. Such a disk is colloquially termed a "coaster".
There exist many optical disc authoring technologies for optimizing the authoring process and preventing errors. Some programs are able to mount a disc image as a file system type, so these images appear as actual mounted discs. This feature can be useful for testing a disc image after authoring but before writing to the disc media.
Read more about this topic: Optical Disc Authoring
Famous quotes containing the word process:
“A designer who is not also a couturier, who hasn’t learned the most refined mysteries of physically creating his models, is like a sculptor who gives his drawings to another man, an artisan, to accomplish. For him the truncated process of creating will always be an interrupted act of love, and his style will bear the shame of it, the impoverishment.”
—Yves Saint Laurent (b. 1936)
“A process in the weather of the world
Turns ghost to ghost; each mothered child
Sits in their double shade.
A process blows the moon into the sun,
Pulls down the shabby curtains of the skin;
And the heart gives up its dead.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“The toddler’s wish to please ... is a powerful aid in helping the child to develop a social awareness and, eventually, a moral conscience. The child’s love for the parent is so strong that it causes him to change his behavior: to refrain from hitting and biting, to share toys with a peer, to become toilet trained. This wish for approval is the parent’s most reliable ally in the process of socializing the child.”
—Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)