Rivergate Software Inc. - makers of DVDAfterEdit

The ISO, Joliet, and UDF directories on a DVD are three way to define the file structure of the ROM data on a DVD.

DVDAfterEdit fully supports all of the DVD Video specification directory and file types, including Macintosh Resource Forks and Unicode. It also gives you full control on the directory types you build, while preserving file naming specification limitations and other spec requirements, and defaulting to reasonable choices to make things easier for you.

This whole subject is made complicated by the way things started with CD's and the limited DOS 8.3 file system, graduated to ISO-9660 file names, was later given the Joliet Extensions, and then finally UDF 1.2 was adopted for DVD ROM content, along with continued support for the earlier formats.

The DVD Video content itself, i.e. the contents of the VIDEO_TS folder, always conforms to DOS 8.3, and the file names themselves are fixed by each file's role in the structure of the DVD. This means that the other formats are not needed unless there is ROM content, except that the DVD spec always requires a UDF directory.

ISO

The four choices given to you in the ISO popup are:

1. DVD Video Files Only
2. File Names DOS 8.3
3. File Names Full ISO
4. File Names Mangled

Many of the latest operating systems and applications do not use ISO or Joliet, but the DVD Spec requires at least the DVD Video Files (VIDEO_TS.IFO, VTS_1_0.VOB, VTS_1_1.BUP, etc.) be present in the ISO directory. This means you must have at least option 1. If there are no ROM files, or if there are but they all conform to DOS 8.3, option 2 is viable. Files without a suffix do not meet the DOS 8.3 specification.

Full ISO format requires all upper case characters or numbers, no spaces, very limited special characters, and no more than 30 characters in the name. (See the ISO-9660 spec for more details, if you must).

File Names Mangled means that the program will force all file names to legal ISO-9660 names, and eliminate any duplicates that might result. For a Japanese file name (16-bit Unicode), this might result in something like "_________.TXT", which is not very useful. Probably option 1 is a better choice, since the names will be still show up correctly in the UDF directory, described below.

For a given choice, the Format/Copy dialog will show how many files, if any, were eliminated by that choice.

To see what the resulting file names would be for a given ISO choice, make sure that "Log ISO Bridge" is enabled in the preferences, and click the "Log" button in the Format/Copy dialog.

Joliet

The three choices given to you in the Joliet popup are:

1. None
2. File Names Joliet
3. File Names Mangled.

Joliet format permits 64-character file names with lower-case alpha and other relaxed restrictions. It also relaxes the ISO requirement for directory nesting to no more than eight levels. It doesn't hurt to include the Joliet Directory if the names conform. (It only costs a few sectors of disc space). Otherwise None is probably the best choice.

Again, the dialog will show how many files were eliminated by a given choice and you may create and inspect the log. ("Log ISO Bridge" will also enable logging of any Joliet Bridge).

UDF

The three choices given to you in the UDF popup are:

1. DVD Video Files Only
2. File Names Full UDF
3. File Names Mangled

Option 1 is there because it makes sense if there is no ROM data. There wouldn't seem to be much point in including ROM files on the disc that can't be accessed, or in not including them in UDF but including them in ISO or Joliet, but someone might think of a legitimate reason.

UDF permits 127 16-bit Unicode characters, or 254 8-bit Unicode characters. If any character in any name is not in the list of legal 8-bit Unicode characters, all names will be represented in 16-bit Unicode.

If not all names are legal in their entirety, you may choose to mangle them (reduce them to legal names). Perhaps a better choice, particularly if this results in eliminating any duplicates, is to reexamine the file names.

As before, you may create and inspect the log to assist you with fixing the names.