burncd(8) usability: why `-s max' isn't default?

[Maxim Sobolev]

Søren Schmidt wrote:

> Maxim Sobolev wrote:
> 
>> Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
>>
>>> Maxim Sobolev <sobomax at portaone.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> I wonder if there are any compelling reasons why `-s max' is not
>>>> default behaviour of burncd(8). IMHO, there is no point to have
>>>> default of 4. Usually, today's drives are smart enough to select the
>>>> maximum speed supported both by drive and by the medium.
>>>
>>>
>>> Plenty of drives aren't, especially with cheap media.
>>
>>
>> Do you have any evidence?
>>
>> I know what I am talking about. We are working on the mass-product 
>> based on FreeBSD. This product will have to burn data CDs. We have 
>> tried compatibility of various media with `-s max', including very 
>> cheap ones and have never seen any corruption due to speed mismatch. 
>> Virtually all media available on the market today has a special track, 
>> which records its speed rating and manufacturer.
> 
> 
> If you know what you are talking about, and is in the process of making a
> FreeBSD product, I'm sure you also know how to patch FreeBSD to do what
> you want for that product.

Yes, I know how to do it, but it is not the topic of this discussion. 
Apart from my commercial activity, I am running quite large FreeBSD user 
group in my country, so that improving OOB FreeBSD useability concerns me.

> For the "free" version of FreeBSD I'd prefer we stick to what we have, 
> there
> are way too many crappy burners/media out there that will produce bad 
> results,
> and that translates into mails in my inbox with complaints that I can 
> easily
> live without....

Few of my friends were quite surprised when I've told them about '-s 
max' option and how useful it is. I wonder how many FreeBSD users out 
there don't know about it as well and wonder why FreeBSD is so slow when 
burning at their brand-new zillon-speed CD-RW drive.

BTW, maybe it would be better to add logic to read media's max speed 
into burncd/atapicd and throttle burning accordingly? For example with 
cdrdao(8) it is possible to do something like the following using atapicam:

-bash-2.05b$ sudo cdrdao disk-info -v 0 --device 1,0,0 --driver 
generic-mmc | grep ^Reco
Recording Speed      : 0X - 8X
-bash-2.05b$

We've confirmed that it produces accurate results for all types and 
speeds we've been able to find on market.

-Maxim