User Guide

240 Chapter 16, Copy Protection and Premastering
File Systems and Filenames
DVD-Video discs contain at least two file systems: the Universal Disc Format (UDF) and
ISO 9660. In addition, the Joliet file system, an extensions to ISO 9660, can also be used.
These file systems determine how filenames for DVD files outside the video and audio zones
(DVD-ROM data) are displayed.
The main reason for using Joliet is to allow for filenames longer than 30 characters (the
maximum supported by ISO 9960), with a wider range of characters, on systems that don’t
support UDF. Table 12 lists the different DVD file systems and their capabilities.
.
Note: The Mac OS can read Joliet discs but will shorten the filenames to 30 characters and
not display non-English characters.
Table 12: DVD file systems
Supported Number Of
File
System
Characters/
File Name
Characters/
Folder Name
Nested
Folders
Supported Characters OS Support
MS-DOS 8+3 8 – Uppercase alphanumeric,
underscore (_), tilde (~)
MS-DOS
ISO 9660
Level 1
8+3 8 8 Uppercase alphanumeric,
underscore (_)
MS-DOS,
Windows 3.x
ISO 9660
Level 2/3
30 30 8 ASCII Mac OS, Unix,
Windows 95
and later
Joliet 108 108 unlimited ASCII, Unicode (foreign) Windows 95
and later
UDF 255 255 – ASCII, Unicode (foreign) Windows 98
and later