Glossary (IMAPI)

ANSI

The American National Standards Institute.

Burn Engine

A component that reads data from a provided data stream (for example, IStream or IO.Stream) and writes that data to a CD/DVD device. The component must consider the available buffer on the drive, but does not contain any knowledge of the format of the data, prepare the drive for writing, or inform the drive that the writing process has completed.

CD/DVD Device

A device that reports itself as a "Type 5" device. This includes CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, and most CD and DVD writer drives. In addition, some drives with magnetic media (such as the IOMEGA REV) report themselves as "Type 5" devices, and show up as CD-ROM devices in Windows.

CD-G

An acronym for CD Graphics, technology exclusive to audio CDs that enables low bit rate graphics to be added to an audio track. This technology is most often used on CDs used for Karaoke.

CD-R

A write-once compact disc.

CD-R/RW

A CD-R or CD-RW compact disc.

CD-ROM

A read-only compact disc.

CD-RW

A rewritable compact disc.

CD-Text

A technology exclusive to audio CDs that enables low bit rate information such as artist name and song name to be stored on the physical media. Applications or devices that play the resulting CD may then retrieve this information, if it exists, to display to the user.

Disc

A generic term for round optical media, such as a CD-ROM or a DVD.

Disc-At-Once

A method of writing to CD media where the entire contents of the burn image are written to the disc in one continuous stream. Also, non-accessible data, such as the lead-in and leadout, are included in the burn image.

Disk

A generic term for round magnetic media, such as a floppy diskette or a hard drive.

Dispatch

A COM interface designation where a given interface supports the IDispatch method of calling a function. See MSDN for more information regarding this advanced COM topic.

Dual

A COM interface designation where a given interface supports both the VTable and the IDispatch methods of calling a function. See MSDN for more information regarding these advanced COM topics.

DVD

A Digital Versatile Disc. Originally, this abbreviation meant "Digital Video Disc".

DVD+R

A write-once DVD. The acronym is pronounced "DVD Plus R".

DVD+R DL

A dual layer DVD+R disc. This type of disc is also known as "DVD+R Double Layer".

DVD+R/RW

A DVD+R disc and a DVD+RW disc.

DVD+RW

A rewritable DVD. The acronym is pronounced "DVD Plus RW".

DVD±R

A DVD+R disc and a DVD-R disc.

DVD±R/RW

A DVD+R disc, a DVD-R disc, a DVD+RW disc, and a DVD-RW disc.

DVD±RW

A DVD+RW disc and DVD+R media

DVD-R

A write-once DVD. The acronym is pronounced "DVD Dash R".

DVD-R DL

A dual layer DVD-R media.

DVD-RAM

A randomly writable DVD. This media type supports hardware defect management that identifies and avoids using damaged tracks. Drives supporting this format are more prevalent in Japan than in the USA.

DVD-ROM

A read-only DVD.

DVD-R/RW

A DVD-R disc and DVD-RW disc.

DVD-RW

A rewritable DVD. The acronym is pronounced "DVD Dash RW".

ECMA

The European Computer Manufacturers Association is an industry association founded in 1961 that is dedicated to the standardization of information and communication systems. ECMA edits standards and technical reports. All ECMA publications are available free of charge.

IMAPI

The Image Mastering API that is used to create and write mastered images (as opposed to a live FS) to CD/DVD devices. This term generically applies to all versions of the Image Mastering API.

IMAPIv1

The version of IMAPI first exposed in Windows XP. IMAPI 1.0 supports CD-R and CD-RW media.

IMAPIv2

The second version of IMAPI, released with Windows Vista.

INCITS

The InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards, an organization accredited and approved by ANSI.

ISO9660

A file system designed for first generation of CD media. This file system has significant file name and sorting limitations.

ISO Image

A common name for a sector-by-sector image of the entire data area of a data CD or DVD disc. The name grew from the common use of ISO9660 as the file system for CD media.

Joliet

A set of standardized extensions to ISO9660 that supports UNICODE filenames up to 64 characters in length. See ECMA specification number 119 for details.

MMC

The Multimedia Command set that is defined by the T10 working group of INCITS. The MMC defines packet commands for CD and DVD devices. Current working drafts of the MMC may be found at the T10 web site.

Mt. Fuji

A set of commands to control multimedia devices, similar to the MMC command set. Some items (such as features or media types) are described in the Mt. Fuji documents, while others are first described in the MMC documents. Current working drafts of the command set may be found at ftp://ftp.avc-pioneer.com.

SCSI

The Small Computer System Interface.

SCSI Command

Any of a number of packet commands such as those defined in the MMC document. These commands may be sent using any appropriate transport mechanism, such as SCSI, ATAPI, USB, or IEEE1394.

Session-At-Once

A method of creating a CD Plus disc. One writing session records audio tracks onto the disc and a second session writes a single CD-XA track onto the disc and closes the disc.

Track-At-Once

A method of writing to CD media where the data for a single track is written at one time. When all tracks are written, the session is closed as a final step that involves writing the lead-in and lead-out areas of the disc.

Universal Disk Format (UDF)

This file system is defined by OSTA (the Optical Storage Technology Association) that supports single-session and multi-session discs.

VTable

A COM interface designation where a given interface supports the vtable method of calling a function. See MSDN for more information regarding this advanced COM topic.