Optical disc drive beam on a smaller spot size and to read smaller pits. DVD lens supports a different focus for CD or DVD media with same laser. With the newer Blu-ray disc drives, the laser only has to penetrate 0.1 mm of material. Thus the optical assembly would normally have to have an even greater focus range. In practice, the Blu-ray optical system is separate from the DVD/CD system. During the times of CD writer drives, they are often marked with three different speed ratings. In these cases, the first speed is for write-once (R) operations, the second speed for re-write (RW)
Optical disc authoring require writing the entire disc at once, but allow writing of different parts at different times. This allows a user to construct a disc incrementally, as it could be on a rewritable medium like a floppy disk or rewritable CD. However, if the disc is non-rewritable, a given bit can be written only once. Due to this limitation, a non-rewritable disc whose burn failed for any reason cannot be repaired. (Such a disc is colloquially termed a "coaster", a reference to a beverage coaster.) There are many optical disc authoring technologies for optimizing the authoring process and preventing errors. Some