Backing up..multisession DVD questions

[jranaudo]

OK I make my videos and store them on my home network for viewing via my xbox 360. Now I also backup these movies to a DVD data disc.

What does one do when you don't have enough data to fill up a DVD +R(for example) disc?

Currently I am just burning it as another session on the DVD. The Problem came up when I wanted to just copy the disc to make an offsite version of it. Roxio Easy CD creator 5 only copied the first session and NOT the others. I cannot seem to find a way to make it copy ALL sessions.

Is creating a multisession DVD ok for just backing up mpeg files? How do others backup there movie files. What do you do when there is not enough data to fill up the disc?

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

[Krispy Kritter]

For that type of backup, I use multiple RW discs.

I don't use multi-session as there are known issues with the discs not being readable by all drives / software.

Even if you are only using +/- R discs, they are cheap enough now that it isn't really a big deal.

[jranaudo]

But how does that work with RW discs? Don't they use sessions also? or is it all on one session?

How is RW different from -R/+R in regards to multi sessions?

ps. I know RW is rewritable.

Thanks...

[jranaudo]

Is it better to do the following...

For example, 10 file on DVD disc dont fill up disc. I want to add 5 more. Using DVD RW I copy all files (10) on the DVD to harddrive then erase the disc. Once erased I re-burn with the 10 plus 5 new files.

Is this the norm?

Sometime I have only 1 file that I would like to burn and it cannot fit on the last backup DVD so I end up with a 4.7GB DVD disc with only 1 file.

Any other opinions?

[RLT69]

Sounds like you don't have multiple sessions but rather multiple volumes or maybe you need to finalize the disc in order for roxio to copy the disc as a whole.

A multi session disc allows you to write multiple times. each time you write a new session, the application should be importing the previous session. if this not happening, this would be your problem.

However if you start a new session without importing the previous session, then you have created a new volume. this means your computer would only mount the last session burnt to the disc. you can access previous sessions through special software: "nero multi mount" or roxio "session selector." i don't think roxio has this anymore. Macs would recognize the different volumes and mount them automatically, as would Linux I believe.

Thus, it depends on what you did when you added sessions to your DVD. I usually wait to fill up a DVD before I burn, so I don't mess much with multi session dvds.

Here's some info about multi session dvds using Nero. This might help.

http://www.computer-2tr.com/tips/05/20050925.html