How to recognise different types of optical media from quite a long way away

[Polytropon]

On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 09:39:01 +0100, Steve O'Hara-Smith wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 09:10:48 +0200
> Polytropon <freebsd at edvax.de> wrote:
> 
> > Can someone suggest a convenient way to identify optical media
> > when inserted into an optical drive? I have no problem with
> > using several tools or grepping through verbose output. What
> > I need is something like:
> 
> 	Try dvd+rw-mediainfo from dvd+rw-tools, it's been a while since I
> used it but ISTR it doing what you're looking for.

This works quite fine (except for CDs, which it probably isn't
supposed to support). I can get the relevant information, like:

% dvd+rw-mediainfo /dev/dvd | grep "Mounted Media:"
 Mounted Media:         11h, DVD-R Sequential

or

 Mounted Media:         1Bh, DVD+R

or

 Mounted Media:         1Ah, DVD+RW

or

 Mounted Media:         10h, DVD-ROM

Thanks, this will help a lot!

Surprising finding: The message "1Bh, DVD+R" was obtained from a
media labeled both "DVD+R" and "RW" by the distributor, even though
the "paper DVD" on top of the spindle does not mention "RW". Maybe
the distributor requires a friendly letter not to label DVDs with
a property they do not have... ;-)


-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...