PyBurn Studio v1.15.0.0

Overview

This release replaces the Windows disc-burning engine. Instead of burning
through the IMAPI2 COM API, PyBurn Studio now talks to the optical drive
directly, sending the low-level drive commands itself. On some USB drives
IMAPI2's progress mechanism could corrupt a burn (its progress callback fires in
the middle of the write and the drive rejects it), and there was no safe way to
get live progress from it on that hardware. The new engine puts every write under
the app's own control, so burns are reliable, progress is exact, and there is
nothing in the write path that can interfere with the disc.

No new dependencies, no new tools, and nothing extra to install. If you burned
and ripped before, you still burn and rip with no setup.

What's new

Native SPTI/MMC burn engine. Windows data and audio CDs now burn through a
built-in engine that opens the drive directly and issues raw MMC commands, the
same low-level technique the ripper already uses to read discs. Because the app
issues every write itself, the progress bar reflects exactly how much has been
written, with no COM, no events, and no background polling that could collide
with the burn.

Reliable audio CDs. Audio discs burn gapless in Disc-At-Once mode with a
proper cue sheet and the standard pre-gap, producing correct Red Book audio.

Laser power calibration (OPC). Before the first write, the drive now
calibrates its laser power for the specific disc you loaded, exactly as
established burning tools do. Skipping this step could let a burn start and then
fail partway through; performing it makes writes dependable.

Pure-Python disc image builder. Data disc images (ISO9660 with Joliet
long-name support) are now authored inside the app with no external tools and no
COM. This was verified against a standard ISO parser across empty files, small
and large files, and deeply nested folders.

Isolated burns. The actual burn now runs in its own separate process, fully
insulated from the main application, with progress and status streamed back live.

Fixes

• Data burns no longer corrupt on drives where the old progress mechanism
  interfered with the write.
• The audio decode progress bar now fills all the way to 100% regardless of how
  many tracks you burn (it previously stopped at 40%). Decoding fills its own
  bar, then burning fills its own bar.
• Progress reporting during an audio burn no longer risks stalling the write on
  slower systems.

Setup and requirements

• No new dependencies. The new engine uses only the Python standard library
  and the built-in Windows interfaces. Existing pinned build requirements and the
  build process are unchanged.
• Nothing new to install. Burning and ripping work out of the box on Windows.
  As before, ffmpeg is an optional one-click download from the Setup screen for
  better audio decoding and rip encoding, and WSL2 (also installed from Setup) is
  needed only if you want Video DVD or Blu-ray authoring.
• The Setup screen now names the engines accurately and states plainly what a
  first-time user does (nothing required to burn or rip).

Platform notes

• Windows: data discs, audio CDs, and ripping run natively with no external
  tools. Video DVD and Blu-ray authoring still use WSL2 for the authoring step
  and are then burned by the native engine.
• Linux and macOS: unchanged. Everything continues to run through the
  standard command-line disc tools.

Upgrade notes

• This release changes how Windows burns work under the hood. If you maintain
  your own validation, revalidate data-CD and audio-CD burning on your hardware.
• comtypes remains a dependency: IMAPI2 is still used for reading media
  information, blanking rewritable discs, and eject, and as an audio fallback.