? Physical Location of Files on Disc

[Synetech]

Hi,

I have been looking for a CD/DVD app for several years now. I am looking for something that can display a picture of a disc and indicate what part of it a specified file is located at.

One program that is close is CD-DVD Speed’s scan-disk function. It shows the sector map and if you click a file in the list, it highlights it in the map. Of course it’s a rectangular, linear map which does not correspond to physical location on the disc:

dvd-lab has apparently implemented a version of what I am looking for with their DVD Data Topology feature:

I’m hoping to find one that can read a disc’s TOC (CD or DVD) and let you select one or more files and display where on the disc they would be located (obviously a disc can be rotated, but it at least shows you the range as distance from the hub). It would be even better if it could read a directory and show you where the files would (like dvd-lab’s function).

Has anyone seen anything like this? I know I’m asking for something unusual, so I accept that I may as usual end up having to write it myself, but I would of course need some info on the calculations needed.

Thanks a lot.

[RichMan]

Hi Synetech,

If you can do the code, I can certainly give you the calcualtions. What parts about the CD structure do you not know? You’ll need sectors per second, sector size, track pitch, linear velocity, start radius, etc…

RM

[Synetech]

Hey,

Thanks for the interest. I would write the app, but it would not be a throw-together-a-VB-app-in-an-afternoon type of project (not that I use VB, but I am overloaded as it is). That’s why I’m trying to find an existing app.

[RichMan]

Hey Synetech,

Let me know if you change your mind. You’ll probably have to send me a PM since I may not see this thread again.

I could easily write an app that would tell you what radius in mm from the center of the disc that a file would be located at. I could do this for CD and for DVD if it had ISO 9660 file system. I could not yet do this for a disc that has only UDF file system. I first need to learn to parse the UDF file system. Doing the graphical part you are talking about is not something that I would be familiar with at this point.

The CD physical spec has a lot of tolerance (room for slop) so the radius point would never be exact but would be fairly close (within a few mm). The DVD spec has much tighter specs and would be more accurate.

RM

[Synetech]

Sure, will do.