It assumes that the buffer starts full—requiring a potentially significant pause before the reading process begins—and that it will always remain full unless the connection is currently blocked.
Therefore, a technique called buffer underrun protection was implemented by various individual CD/DVD writer vendors, under various trademarks, such as Plextor BurnProof, Nero UltraBuffer, Yamaha SafeBurn, JustLink, and Seamless Link.
Another way to protect against the problem, when using rewritable media (CD-RW, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM), is to use the UDF file system, which organizes data in smaller "packets", referenced by a single, updated address table, which can therefore be written in shorter bursts.
Many video player programs (e.g. MPlayer) feature the ability to drop frames if the system is overloaded, intentionally allowing a buffer underrun to keep up the tempo.
If an underrun occurs and the audio controller is not stopped, it will either keep repeating the sound contained in the buffer, or output silence depending on the implementation.