Comment 6 for bug 884132

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Alessandro Menti (elgaton) wrote : Re: k3b requires empty media even for simulation+create image only

I said you wanted to convert CD image formats because, if you start a new data/audio project *from scratch* and try to burn it (choosing, for example, "File->New Project->New Data Project", dragging and dropping files from the file manager window at the top to the project window at the bottom and then clicking on "Burn"), there is already the checkbox "Only create image" that creates an ISO image for you, without requiring any medium.
What you were trying to do was to create an ISO file from a CD/DVD image file (let it be APE+CUE, BIN or another format) to an ISO file. In the field, these concepts are quite different: while burning a CD/DVD from normal data files requires that an ISO image file is created first (either on the hard drive or on the fly) to encode the data appropriately, APE+CUE/BIN/ISO files are *directly* written to the disk, as they are an exact "dump" of the CD/DVD.

For this reason, these two uses of K3b are implemented as *separate* operations, with separate dialogs. There are two different "starting points" as you call them; one to create a CD from data files, and one to create a CD from an image file.

Also, the words "Simulation" and "Create image" carry a precise meaning in burning programs. "Create image" means that the ISO image file is not created on the fly, and "Simulation" means that the burner tries to simulate a writing on the inserted medium: the disk is rotated at the same speed that would be used for a real writing and data is transferred from the computer to the drive just like it would be if the medium was burned. The simulation is in fact identical to burning, except for the fact that the laser of the drive is turned off: most importantly, it's a "physical" operation. For this reason, those options can not be used to "burn" an APE+CUE image to an ISO file; that's more like converting an image file format to another.

Some programs offer the option to create another image file as a "virtual recorder" that is treated just like a burner, but K3b has decided to use checkboxes in the Burn dialog to implement it. Maybe you were deceived by this fact.

Anyway, I have updated the bug report that I linked before to ask the K3b developers to add conversion support between formats.