What is the perpose of "burning simulation"?

[rado84]

I've noticed many burning programs have a function named "burning simulation" and so does ImgBurn (the icon is a blank page with many zeroes on it and an arrow pointing to a disk). Just out of curiousity - what is the perpose of that function? Why would anyone want to run a simulation instead of a normal burning process?

[dbminter]

A simulation can save you wasting a write once disc or taking longer to burn a rewritable, which would also cost you one of the few rewrites you actually get on rewritables.

 

 

However, sometimes, the simulation burn succeeds and yet the actual burn may still fail.  So, your mileage may vary with this function. 

[rado84]

I ran that to try it and I still wasted one disk because it turned out it was finalized. I noticed that while the process was running the log window read there was a "burn-Proof" setting activated. Maybe the developers should add one more option to that - "finalizing-Proof", so that you don't lose an empty disk after the simulation.

[dbminter]

I've never run the option, myself.  I just guessed it wouldn't perform an actual write to media.

[rado84]

It doesn't but it still finalizes the disk, making it unusable after.

[dbminter]

That does seem to defeat the purpose of a simulation.  It should either not Finalize media or allow an option for the user to disable it, like you said.  Maybe a Simulation - No Finalize option.

[rado84]

It should but it doesn't.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

You're confused.

 

'Test Mode' is the simulation option.

 

It is only supported by CD-R and DVD-R format media. For other media types, the program will tell you it won't work.