| dvd+rw-tools | |
| Developer: | Andy Polyakov |
| Latest Release Version: | 7.1 |
| Operating System: | Cross-platform |
| Genre: | DVD/Blu-ray writing |
| License: | GNU General Public License |
dvd+rw-tools (also known as growisofs, its main part) is a collection of open-source DVD and Blu-ray Disc tools for Linux, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX, Windows and OS X. dvd+rw-tools does not operate CD media.[1]
The package itself requires another program which is used to create ISO 9660 images on the fly. This is provided by mkisofs (from the cdrtools package) or genisoimage (from the cdrkit package) or a symbolic link to (from the or package).[2]
Released under the GNU General Public License, dvd+rw-tools is free software.
growisofs is a SCSI/MMC driver in userspace for burning optical media, like cdrecord or . Its original purpose is to coordinate burning with a run of mkisofs, so that ISO 9660 multi-session becomes possible on DVD+RW media. But soon it supported all kinds of DVD media and later also BD (Blu-ray) media. Further it can burn preformatted data images onto the media, not needing any ISO 9660 formatter program for this task.
growisofs employs a Ring Buffer in userspace to smoothen the data transmission to the drive. The fill level of this buffer is reported during a burn run as "RBU", whereas the fill level of the drive's built-in buffer is reported as "UBU".