incremental write on CD

[tr_dlite]

Since I haven't used this product I have to wonder when will I actually need this product most.

If I don't have enough images to fill a CD yet do I wiat until I have that much or does the sw allow for incremental writes on the CD by keeping the CD open for writes?

I am just trying to see if I need to wait until archiving becomes a real issue for me. For now I don't have that much to archive but it's on my mind for future.

Thanks for any comments.

[MichaelT]

Our philospphy right now is that we do NOT do incremental writes onto the CD.

Whenever we write a CD we close (or finalize) the disc. This is because our progam is to Archive important files. And a non "closed" disc can be a dangerous thing and is certainly not an Archive (in terms of safety), and is easy to make unreadable and is not particularly stable. All kinds of things canhappen to it.

My suggestion is as follows....

Make incremental archives to inexpensive media along the way. They should be fine for the short term. Then when you have a full disc, us the proper high quality media (650Mb Gold IMHO), and you can toss out the other CDs. Cheap media cost about 20 cents each, so the cost of doing this is not expensive and you have backups along the way, and then a final Archive later.

Each person will develop their own stype and workflow, and this is just one suggestion. So no...as of now we do not leave any discs open. It is too risky in our opinion.

BTW...AC is also very good to give a relative or friend copies of your pictures, by making an Archive with AC. Then the CD has all the full files, along with a thumb and viewing image index. This is a handy way to give them a copy of the pictures, so they can use them themselves but also have a quick and easy way to view them..

I hope that this has been helpful..

Just a reminder...the price will be going up. So even if you do not need AC now it will be cheaper now than later.