Finalize

This is a word that gets used in many different contexts lately. One company has even used it to name a product. Up until recently, however, its relevance to us was mostly in the domain of recording CDs on a CD recorder. Finalization is the process where an Orange Book disc (one that is in process) is made into a Red Book CD, which is suitable for playback on any CD player. The idea being that finalization is the last step in the process, after which there is no turning back. Finalized WORM discs cannot be changed or updated in any way without rendering them useless. This is because the key ingredient in finalizing a disc is writing the TOC. Sometimes this process is also called “fix-up.”