I've spent a long long time working out how I wanted to archive my CD collection to FLAC. The one factor I didn't condsider was file system. That is until I came to burn a DVD with IS09660+Joliet and found I had one track with too long a filename. Therefore I've hit a brick wall.

I've googled plenty of reading but what I really want is real, hands on advice from any of you who had had the same dilemma.

Now I've spent a ridiculous amount of time ripping, tagging, creating MD5 checksums, fingerprints, etc. so I really don't want to go through them all again. I'd got my files just right, ready to burn, but don't know which way to go.

Using Nero, to accomodate long filenames, do I go with IS09660:1999 or one of the UDF versions? Compatibilty, longevity, reliability ??? Which do I go with ? Is this VHS/Betamax stuff ? I'm using XP and rarely would need to revert back to any older OS so I think I'd be okay with UDF v2.01 which is the highest version my Nero supports. I mean, would the more ubiquitous UDF v1.02 be a backward step ?

Up until now, I've been fine with plain old ISO9660+Joliet and never given it a second thought. Having recently altered my file naming scheme to include the artist as well as tracknumber and title, I can see this could be a problem I'll come across on further burns. I'd like to make the right decision now.

Any recommendations, advice, no-no's, horror stories etc .etc. would be of great help. I've got backlogged files here I need to burn ASAP and I'm scared I'll make the wrong choice.

From here (small text at the end of the post): The reason I prefer UDF is for compatibility (as with FLAC) also it's support for long file names & becasue it's a newer standard it should have superior error correcting compared to ISO 9660.

Makes sense right?

UDF v1.02 is the filesystem used for DVDvideo so it will last for quite a while.
for a comparison of the different versions see here.

Yeah, well I'm slightly inclined to think UDF makes sense. If I go with that, it's just the version I'd need to decide on. Plus, as with ISO9660:1999, I'm always dubious of older protocols given a new lease of life with modern updates. They are often short lived. The nearest analogy I can think of again, is the fact that S-VHS became irrelevent once DVD arrived.

I've burned a couple of different discs (DVD-R), one with UDF 2.01 and another with ISO9660:1999 and tried them on XP and W98. The UDF 2.01 wasn't recognized on W98 but ISOBuster could see it fine and I'm sure a UDF reader would solve that if need be. On that basis I can't see why going back as far as 1.02 would be worth it. It seems 1.02 is for DVD Video, mine is data, never to played on a DVD-Video player, so I think I'd be safe. With Blu-Ray said to use 2.50 and 2.60, it does seem that UDF might be the way to go.

One minor downside I have noticed is that Nero Infotool doesn't find some of the disc info for the UDF DVD, but does for the ISO9660:1999 DVD. Could this be an ASPI issue ? (I'm using 4.71.2). Not recording the date the disc was burned is something I'd be a little miffed about. Both are recognized and allow access to the files on XP, so as of today onwards I can at least be sure my files are accessible.

You don't have to choose between ISO or UDF.

UDF/ISO - last choice in nero compilation window...

As for the UDF version, 1.50 and over _may_ have better error redundancy. I can't verify it in any way or find something that states this clearly. The only info I found on this is a post in cdfreaks - http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.php?p=661469&postcount=5

Also check http://dvdisaster.berlios.de/en/index.html for extra protection.

i'm more of a fan of rock ridge, myself.

Actually, ISO/UDF is no good either. I've tried.

Because it's still ISO9660, it still gives me the message that one of my filenames is too long, as I would expect. I'd need ISO9660:1999 and UDF, which isn't an option available. I can't go with it truncating it as then my m3u playlist, fingerprints, MD5 checksums all become invalid. No way can I re-rip this lot to use a shorter naming scheme so the only leeway I have now is on making the right choice of file system.

My issue is fundamentally with long filenames, not merely a preference of file system. Had I not been given the warning message about the filenames being too long, I'd have happily carried on using ISO9660+Joliet as I have for ever DVD I've ever made so far (a few hundred). At least I found out trying with the first disc and not the Nth.

Normally, I wouldn't be so anal about this issue, but this is has been a meticulosly considered archiving project and this final hurdle has thrown a spanner in the works.

Maybe BurnAtOnce is the application you're looking for. It allows you to create UDF/ISO9660:1999 filesystems.
Sadly, it seems that the development has stopped somehow...

Due to some recent disappointments with nero 7, I installed the trial of gear pro last week. There you can choose between iso, hybrid iso/udf or pure udf. I don't know enough about cd file systems but maybe the last option is what you're looking for?

In fact I have often asked myself why, if udf is a more robust format, the iso9660+joliet file system is still as ubiquitous for cd's as mp3 is for audio compression. Is there a catch?

Well, iso would only be used in "emergency", if you were in the situation to be forced to load and use the disc in Win98. And even then you could install a free driver and read the udf filesystem, or use a tool like isobuster and copy files with full names to the harddisk. I guess that in reality you won't use anything else than XP?

But hey, do you mean that filenames gets truncated under the udf filesystem as well, if you let Nero shorten them? That would be utterly stupid of Nero doing that... but somehow I'm not surprised if it is so.

Does Win98 really read iso9660:1999 correctly? I haven't used burnatonce for a long time, but try it and see if you can get dvd support working and if it's possible to use both iso9660:1999 and udf, as sundance suggested. I have been using it a lot for burning cdr, but never for dvd's actually, so I don't have a clue.

The most simple solution would be to only use udf 1.02 if you want the discs to be readable "everywhere".

I had a look at Gear Pro and it appears not to incorporate ISO9600:1999 at all. Interestingly enough though, it seems that the default setting for data DVD's with UDF is version 1.50. It has provision for versions up to 2.01 but seems to indicate use of an earlier version with 1.50. Also plan on checking out BurnAtOnce which I had been aware of recently.

I think after even more reading I've begun to err on the side of going the singular UDF route. The think the very fact that Blu Ray is going to be using UDF 2.60 is indication enough that UDF has some longevity. I'd like the idea of burning my UDF at version 2.60 but can't find any software that is capable of this.

I too would like to know why ISO9660+Joliet is still so widespread considering there a much newer and 'better' systems.

Because ISO9660+Joliet has quite better compatibility with most popluar OS. ISO9660+Joliet is very easy to implement at low cost.

UDF 1.02 for me. Used it all the while. Has everything I ever wanted.

One of the annoying features with burning with Nero (6 or 7 series) is the file names consistency/lenght check.

If Nero complaines about the consistency, it won't even burn the compilation.

This is just brain dead for doing back ups of thousands of files on a DVD.

One has to MANUALLY go through them and edit them for consistency, in order to be able to burn in Nero.

And Nero logs provide NO clue as to what is wrong with each file name that fails it's internal check.

Also, this 'feature' of Nero has nothing to do with with Nero's Options/Misc features being turned on/off (Chneck for correct format, list all renamed files... etc).

A much better burning program in this regard is the already mentioned Burn-at-Once, which in its default form unfortunately only supports burnin CD-R discs (DVD burning is an added trickery).

An alternative free option for dvd burning is CDBurner XP Pro, which despite its name, can burn DVD discs without complaining about file naming conventions.

Ever since I found out that something called UDF existed I fully switched to using it. Never created an ISO9660 image ever since.

Nero is a real creep with it's uneccesary limitations on path/filename/label lengths. It won't budge even when you choose to create an UDF-only disk. I assume Nero only supports UDF because it has to in order to burn DVD-Video. So I'll kick it from my HD soon, wasn't going to buy Nero 7 anyway...

If you are looking for a tool that is able to create ISO9660:1999 and UDF filesystems on the same image then burnatonce might be interesting for you. But apparently it only supports UDF 1.02 and it can't create UDF-only images, which is why it limits CD/DVD labels to 41 chars when you try to (it will secretly add ISO9660 unless...). In fact you must create a ISO9660:1999+UDF1.02 hybrid in order to get rid of all these limitations.

So far I've been creating UDF-only images with Nero 6 and fixed the truncated label with ImgBurn, then also burned it with that. But it's so annoying, I think I will simply accept to make ISO9660:1999+UDF hybrids with bao until I find the perfect CD/DVD image creation/burning tool.

I've tried CDBurner XP Pro but it doesn't seem to support no other filesystem except "ISO1", "ISO2" or "Joliet". And so for instance disc labels are limited to 15 characters which is a good indication that there is not even hidden UDF support.