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Burning CD with Japanese filenames

Kojiro Sasaki

後輩
8 Sep 2013
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I need to record a couple of CDs for some Japanese companies and the files I prepared are named in Japanese. How should I burn it with European Windows XP, to make it work on Japanese operating systems?

If I would use Joliet filesystem, which supports unicode names, would it work?
What is the best way to burn CD to make it fully compatible and easy to use by those companies?

I already collected some knowledge, but this is EXTREMELY important and I need to be 100% sure.
 
Joliet supports Unicode, therefore Asian languages should be supported on all modern OS. There's a character limit though.

If you're so concerned about compatibility why don't you just use romaji (rather than risking mojibake)?
 
If you're so concerned about compatibility why don't you just use romaji (rather than risking mojibake)?
A person I consider an authority told me that using rōmaji is not a good idea. I definitely don't want to risk mojibake - that's why I'm doing this research :D

I thought that maybe somebody has practical experience with this kind of stuff?
 
Setting your non-unicode locale to Japanese should be enough for emulating a Japanese Windows installation. If the file names show up correctly in that case, they'll also show up correctly on a Japanese machine.
 
Setting your non-unicode locale to Japanese should be enough for emulating a Japanese Windows installation. If the file names show up correctly in that case, they'll also show up correctly on a Japanese machine.
Thanks! I will check this.

Maybe I should just record ISO image and give it to somebody in Japan? Anybody interested? :D
 
A person I consider an authority told me that using rōmaji is not a good idea.
Not everybody who has been to Japan is an authority. I can't imagine any Japanese company, no matter how insular, that would find fault with a romaji file name. ESPECIALLY a company that is asking a foreign person or foreign company to create digital files for them.
 
Thank you for your interest in my problem, but guys... you aren't helping...

The guy who told me that studied the language for a couple of years. He said, that average Japanese person may not know how to read rōmaji. I have no idea about this, so the only thing I could do was accepting what he said. Still - it doesn't matter.

Naming those files in Japanese required extreme effort from my part, and it is very important part of the entire project. Besides, I don't know how to properly romanize them. Many of those names use technical terms and I think that they may be hard to understand without proper kanji.
 
Japanese people learn romaji in the 4th grade of elementary school. It is an important part of their language. They know how to read it.

However, you need to do whatever you feel you have to do. You are the one responsible for this -- not us.
 
And, incidentally, accusing us of not helping on a forum in which your only contributions are seeking help for your own problems is a little obnoxious. I would suggest that you reconsider your attitude if you want to continue to receive help here in the future.
 
Japanese people learn romaji in the 4th grade of elementary school. It is an important part of their language. They know how to read it.

However, you need to do whatever you feel you have to do. You are the one responsible for this -- not us.
I had no idea about that. I need to make kanji properly displayed on Japanese operating systems.
Nobody says that you guys are the ones who are responsible for this.
And, incidentally, accusing us of not helping on a forum in which your only contributions are seeking help for your own problems is a little obnoxious. I would suggest that you reconsider your attitude if you want to continue to receive help here in the future.
Is being grateful for your interest obnoxious? Is saying that calling the person who helped me "not an authority" does not help me with the issue obnoxious? Thank you for explaining the romaji case, but describing this person is not related to the topic. Also, convincing me that I should use romaji does not help me with my problem. Is this really a big deal? If it is - please excuse me. Being unpleasant was not my intent.
 
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He said, that average Japanese person may not know how to read rōmaji.

Phones and tablets have created a new way to "type" without using romaji, but before and apart from the world of mobile--on any desktop or laptop--Japanese input starts with romaji. Anyone who uses Word or Excel on a computer will be completely (and I mean completely) familiar with romaji.
 
Thanks! I will check this.

Maybe I should just record ISO image and give it to somebody in Japan? Anybody interested? :D
There's no need to go that far. The only differences between your Windows installation and a Japanese one are the UI language, the regional settings (such as the date format), and the non-unicode locale. Only the last one could possibly have any effect on how file names are displayed.
 
Phones and tablets have created a new way to "type" without using romaji, but before and apart from the world of mobile--on any desktop or laptop--Japanese input starts with romaji. Anyone who uses Word or Excel on a computer will be completely (and I mean completely) familiar with romaji.
They are completely familiar with romaji as an input method. I think the point is that it is a pain in the arse to read which is very true.

As far as the disc goes as others have said you should not have an issue if you are using modern computers. Why not transmit electronically and send them a USB stick as well? Sometimes we (my Japanese company) would take delivery of such things in a physical media to satisfy some purchasing rules we had. Or deliver on physical media. But we would typically also send/receive electronically and never actually touch the physical media.
 
There's no need to go that far. The only differences between your Windows installation and a Japanese one are the UI language, the regional settings (such as the date format), and the non-unicode locale. Only the last one could possibly have any effect on how file names are displayed.
Everything suggests that filenames should be displayed properly with Joliet system. I think that non-unicode locale should not be a problem, when the system uses unicode character set.

No matter what, checking it on Japanese operating systems would give me 100% certainty.
As far as the disc goes as others have said you should not have an issue if you are using modern computers. Why not transmit electronically and send them a USB stick as well? Sometimes we (my Japanese company) would take delivery of such things in a physical media to satisfy some purchasing rules we had. Or deliver on physical media. But we would typically also send/receive electronically and never actually touch the physical media.
The entire package is two mini CDs and one memory card. I hope that files on SD card (FAT32) named by European system will not cause any problems.

When I started this topic, I was hoping that maybe somebody has practical experience with this kind of stuff.
Let's approach this from different side - does anybody know the place in the internet, where I could receive some help with this? Also, I can record ISO image with some empty text files and send it to somebody in Japan. From practical side, I think that this would be the best way to know if the filesystem works.

This may look like I am some kind of leecher, but the project I am working on is non-profit and if it will succeed, it will make thousands, if not millions of peope all around the world extremely happy. My work is much more altruistic than egoistic :D
 
Hello Kojiro
Best of luck with your endeavor.
I don't wish to beat a dead horse, but since you seemed to be upset by my comment that your acquaintance was not an authority, I feel I should provide some more explanation.
I understood from your initial posts that your primary concern was accuracy, and you seemed to reject a romaji file name based on the information you received. So my response was to assure you that you need not worry about romaji file names, that you could send them and eliminate any mojibake risk. Your friend's advice was incorrect, although he/she no doubt had good intentions.
I now know that you want to send a kanji file name for other reasons. I don't fully understand these reasons. Having spent some decades in Japan (in an IT field) I am a bit curious. But no matter, you wish to send kanji file names for reasons other than what your acquaintance told you. I understand this now. I think there will always be risk of mojibake, and I have no solution for this because we don't know enough about what kanji you are using or what machine your recipients will use to open the file. So I think it is impossible to give you 100% assurance on this (even if you test using Japanese machines in Poland, will you be sure these machines are sufficiently similar to your recipient's machines?)
Bear in mind that we are trying to help. We all just want to make sure you have accurate information. We are not looking to insult you or your friend. Also bear in mind that the people who give advice here are also non-profit. We are giving you advice for purely altruistic reasons. But without accurate information to begin with, it is easy to end up with unproductive responses.
 
I must admit that I had no idea how "you aren't helping" could sound in this particular case. I can only say that I wasn't upset at all when I wrote it and that after your reactions I understood how it could have been taken. My over-reaction was caused by the fact, that I felt attacked, because I was sure that I did nothing wrong. My apology for the confusion - I will improve myself.

Speaking about mojibake - if it occurs, are files with broken names openable? They are mostly graphics or sound samples, so not reading the names of some of them wouldn't be THAT problematic - many of them contain descriptions in graphics themselves.
 
Most probably, yes. How about to send a paper printed the file names in kanji with the CDs for the case of mojibake?
Now you killed me completely... How it is possible that I haven't figured it out? Great idea! Thanks! I will design one additional page in similar style, with all the file names.

Speaking about filesystems, I picked UDF 1.50. It is used on DVD Video and Blu-ray discs. There is no single discussion about its compatibility with Japanese nor any discussion about mojibake occurring with this system.

If nobody discusses it - it should work. Universal Disk Format - I take the first word literally.
 
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