Re: creating LODRUN-able CD's from Windows

[vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Jared - the SAVF version from Centerfield also would force a workflow change to 
some degree, although it is not too severe. You could call for pricing - it's 
more than BugBusters.

The virtual thing does look cool. How you do this depends on your QINSTAPP 
program - the traditional method was to save that program to tape in a QTEMP 
tape sequence file. The rest was various SAVxxx operations to tape. The 
difference with premastering for CDs was the API call to turn off TWERP. SAVFs 
were not part of this, unless you did SAVSAVFDTA to tape.

With the virtual optical drive, you're back to the same tape-like methodology, 
without the premastering confusion.

You could add other things to the image simply by mapping to /QOPT in the IFS - 
this is way cool - it is writable both for save operations AND for normal file 
system usage (the latter might not automatically span - have not tried). If 
your QINSTAPP is restoring SAVFs to QTEMP, you can simply save THEM there, 
being sure to use the SAVFDTA(*YES) parameter - as you know, probably. If you 
are copying from the CD - probably not - you can simply use the CPYTOSTMF to 
put them on the image.

PC stuff can simply be written there as to a normal hard drive - like InCD but 
into a normal ISO-9660 format, not that funky packet format. So it's very 
simple.

Besides, you could put the image on a server and let people download it to a 
V5R2 or later machine and put it into an image catalog on the target - or let 
them burn there own CDs from it.

BTW, if your target OS is V5R2 or later, you have tremendous compression 
options on the SAVxxx command - take a look at the DTACPR parameter.

HTH
Vern

-------------- Original message -------------- 

> I have the link to CD-ROM Studio saved in my bookmarks just in case. :) 
> There's no pricing information on their site (that I could find). Do you 
> happen to know how much they're charging for the non-Advanced version? 
> 
> I've also been looking at the docs for "CD Builder" from BugBusters 
> (30-day free trial, btw), but in order to use its "no intermediate tape" 
> workflow I'd have to significantly alter my QINSTAPP script and the 
> release notes for my software. 
> 
> So I'm intrigued by this "virtual optical drive" business...in fact, it 
> sounds like exactly what everyone would have wanted all along: the ability 
> to create volume images without needing disparate drives and media types 
> on hand. I _am_ on V5R3, and so is (most of) the data I want to put on 
> the CD. 
> 
> What I'd love is the ability to use virtual optical-ness to setup my 
> QTEMP/QINSTAPP magic, and write the AS400 library SAVFs that my QINSTAPP 
> looks for...but then have some way of adding 'normal' PC file system 
> stuff (text files, folders, html documents with long names, etc.) to the 
> CD image before I burn the whole shebang. 
> 
> -Jared 
> 
> On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote: 
> 
> > I recommend getting a package for this - it CAN be done in-house, but 
> > there are a few gotchas that the vendors have solved. I used to work 
> > for Centerfield Technology - their CD-ROM Studio was the first (I 
> > think) CD premastering product out there. It uses tape for the kind of 
> > LODRUN thing we are discussing. It also has a proprietary method for 
> > using SAVFs instead of tape and still have LODRUNable CDs. It also has 
> > an advanced edition with spanning capability that I wrote. ;-) 
> > 
> > Having said that, if you are on V5R3, you can create a virtual optical 
> > drive and create a *NEW image entry in an image catalog by setting the 
> > FROMFILE parameter to *NEW. This is a WRITABLE drive. You can make it 
> > from 48-16000 meg in size, with special values for 650 MB CDs, 2600 MB 
> > DVDs, and 4700 MB DVDs. What you are writing to is essentially an 
> > ISO-compatible optical image that will be in the IFS - you should 
> > probably specify the name in the TOFILE parameter, rather than have 
> > one *GEN'd for you. You can copy it down to a PC and burn it from hard 
> > drive. You can even create multiple image entries in a catalog, 
> > LODIMGCLG to the virtual drive, and it will span the images, just like 
> > good old tape. I have not tried restoring from this yet, to see 
> > whether it will automatically advance to the next volume in a set, but 
> > maybe. 
> > 
> > And you do not need to use the premastering APIs. 
> > 
> > HTH 
> > Vern 
> 
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