Network Burning...

[AngusBreck]

Here's the situation, and I'll try to be to the point...

I bought Nero 5.5 last week because Roxio blew up my system a few weeks prior. I bought Nero 5.5 for a client of mine also, along with a shiny new LaCie 48x12x48 firewire burner. So here's what I need to know because for the life of me I can't figure it out myself even after reading every damn page of help and Ahead's web site...

My client has a workgroup server running Win2k Server. They want to connect the burner to the server (no problem so far). But the kicker is that they want to be able to have a couple people copy files (from a digital camera) to CDR discs from their workstations. I figured InCD would handle it, but it won't do it without using CDRWs which are, as everyone knows, slower than hell. So what sort of crafty things can you fine people suggest?

When I was using Roxio DirectCD would let me initialize a CDR and leave it open to drag n drop burns from inside Explorer. This was great because if someone wanted to burn a file they could just map the drive over the network. Where is that functionality in Nero/InCD/Ahead? I'm getting desperate at this point and I'm wondering now if I can convince them to just have the server run nightly copies from a local folder (where people drop files) onto the CDRs but CRAP I can't get Nero to do that either since it just refuses to let you burn to CDRs unless you're sitting there in front of the computer using Nero. What's up with that? Am I stuck with CDRWs? Last I checked you couldn't write to CDRWs faster than 12x but perhaps that has changed. 12x would be a shame on a 48x burner.

Anyways, please, for the love of Pete someone suggest something I haven't considered. Points to whoever is craftiest. Remember, the goal is to let complete retards easily write one-time backups of files (mostly digicam images) to CDRs over the company LAN.

Answers that involve NeroNET don't count because I already emailed Ahead and they said "not until December" in broken english. Hehe.

Thanks!!

[Tolyngee]

the goal is to let complete retards easily write one-time backups of files (mostly digicam images) to CDRs over the company LAN.

Personally, I wouldn't let 'em...

This reminds me of recently reading a survey where 12% of respondents say they drive with their legs, stating their hands are too busy with other things! (I'm glad my car is designed in such a way that this is impossible... Or at least impossible for me...)

No, unfortunately, I can't think of a solution for ya...

[cfitz]

I don't think it can be done with Nero/InCD, unless maybe you do use CD-RW media.

How about mapping a drop directory for them on the server's hard disk, then running a batch job every night to actually burn the CD-R from the files that were dropped during the day? Nero has a command-line interface via the nerocmd.exe executable, so this should be doable. If not, you could try cdrdao, a free burning tool that is command-line driven.

cfitz

[Ian]

Check out DiscJuggler .NET

[AngusBreck]

Personally, I wouldn't let any old retard in my company burn to CDRs for backing up digital camera pictures either. But then, this isn't my own company we're talking about. Hehe. "The customer is always right" is a truly painful saying. But oh well. I'm still trying to figure out why they want to put images on CDR so badly and not just have me rig them up some jumbo cheap harddrives. Sure, 100GB Ultra160 SCSI drives are a bit pricey for pic storage, but god I could always get them external firewire drives that they could daisychain til the cows come home. Whatever... they want network burning and I told them I could hook them up (like a fool).

So this batch idea sounds good. I had wondered about that before actually, and I think it would be a better overall solution for the time being. So with this command line interface I could take files from a directory and burn the whole thing at a set time? That would be pretty good solution for now. Actually that might be a better solution overall because with some batch scripting goodness from the old days of DOS I could go through the images and enforce a proper naming convention on the image files and stuff like that.

...

Egads, I just ran NeroCmd and the list of switches nearly gave me a heartattack! I saw a bright white light!! Hah. Ok, time to find some info on how to generally use this NeroCmd contraption. Thanks for the info (and any more that you guys feel like contributing)!!

[Tolyngee]

Nero has a command-line interface via the nerocmd.exe executable

Like Angus, I wasn't aware of that either!

Thanks! Nice to know! (although for me it probably won't be of any use... Nero's so darn automatic anyway for how I use it...)

[Inertia]

AngusBreck,

Ian has given you the best advice. Padus DiscJuggler.NET is designed (when used with DiscJuggler) to burn from a server over a network.

If this is what your client wants to do, this is well worth checking out.

[AngusBreck]

Excellent, I hadn't heard of DiscJuggler.NET (or even DiscJuggler Pro) until you suggested it. It looks like it provides everything my client will need eventually, though $1000 for a 4 connection license is a bit steep for them right now. At the moment I think I might be able to get away with DiscJuggler Pro which will let you share a drive over the network in a basic way. NET seems like a great thing if you want to be really formal about network burning and have permissions and so forth. Hell if I don't want someone burning to the drive even with DiscJuggler Pro I can just exclude their user account in windows.

Thanks for the information! Now I gotta find a demo version of Pro so I can test it out and make absolutely sure that it works before I go and tell them that the Nero software they already bought through me (that I suggested) won't work. Oof, what a fubar... At least it's only a $120 mistake on my part for the two Nero licenses I sold them.