Explorer and Burn supports the two image formats iso and img which can also be burned directly by selecting them in Windows Explorer. The program requires the Image Mastering API v2.0 can be downloaded from the Microsoft website. Imapi 2.0 is included in Windows Vista and Windows 7 which means that only Windows XP users have to download the additional component.

Explore and Burn will display a wizard with a few DVD burning options that include specifying a disk burning speed and name. The disk can be finalized in the same menu. The program supports all major CD and DVD disk types and can burn single-session and multi-session discs with ISO-9660, Joliet and UDF file systems.

Explore And Burn is a hassle free DVD burning software that should be sufficient for many disk burning purposes. A few additional options would make it even more useful. This includes recognizing DVD video folders or the ability to burn audio disks by selecting audio files. Explore And Burn can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

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ImgBurn was recently updated to version 2.5 and the developer has published a huge list of changes, fixes and additions to that version. The program stays the same at its core which means it is still the lightweight DVD burning software that can be installed or used as a (unofficial) portable version instead.

Below are some of the more important changes introduced in this version of ImgBurn:

• An ‘Advanced’ input mode to build mode where you have total control over the layout of the disc and can add new folders, change names etc. (i.e. you’re no longer limited to burning an existing folder structure on your hard disc as-is)
• ImgBurn now adds itself to the context menu’s ‘Open With’ submenu for files it’s associated with.
• Support for burning CCD files.
• Support for building images using the ‘MODE2/FORM1/2352′ data type. (previously it only supported ‘MODE1/2048′)
• A check to ensure all the DVD Video files in a sequence are present. (i.e. it’ll prompt if VTS_XX_1.VOB and VTS_XX_3.VOB are present but VTS_XX_2.VOB isn’t)
• Detection of attempts to build Vista style OS installation discs (via the ’sources\install.wim’ file) and the relevant prompting for conflicting settings, failing to make it bootable etc (same as an ‘I386′ install disc).

The new version of the DVD burning software can be downloaded directly from the developer’s website. It has a size of only 2 Megabytes, comes with many language translation files (e.g. German, Chinese, Russian, French and Spanish) and is compatible with all Microsoft operating systems from Windows 95 to Windows 7.

ImgBurn via Download Squad

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To burn a disk image a software is needed that is capable of doing so. One of the best free disk burning applications is ImgBurn. ImgBurn is fast, lightweight and supports many of the more popular disk image formats including ISO, BIN and IMG among others. It is also compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of all Windows operating systems since the release of (and including) Windows 95.

It furthermore is capable of burning disk images to CD, DVD, Blu-Ray and HD DVD. In other words: ImgBurn should cover the needs of 99.9% of all users.

One of the useful features of ImgBurn is its context menu integration. A option to burn the disk image will automatically appear if a user right-clicks a supported disk image file.

The selected disk image will be loaded directly into the disk burning software program with the option to burn it immediately if a blank disk has been inserted into the disk writing drive.

All that is left to do is to click on the icon in the lower left of the window that is opening automatically. This will start the disk burning process. Users can optionally change the write speed settings and amount of copies in the left side or activate test mode or verification. That’s all there is to it to burn a disk image.

We had an ask the readers article just a short while ago about the best free burning software that might be of interest as well.

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Those three are probably the most common uses other than playing movie DVDs on the computer which can be done with virtually any program.

The tools listed below have been tested extensively and completely free, most are Open Source. If you know of a tool that is not in the list but should be let me know and I add it after evaluating it.

Play movie DVDs on the computer:

I rarely play movie DVDs on the computer, heck I dislike watching movies on the computer and prefer to watch them on the big TV screen. My video player of choice, SMPlayer, can play movie DVDs.

It does not offer a menu driven interface but different chapters, subtitles and titles can be selected from the menu. No need for additional specialized software in most cases.

Rip movie DVDs in DVD format to the computer:

Tools in this section:

DVD Smith Movie Backup
DVD Fab HD Decrypter
DVD Shrink

Here we have to distinguish between applications that rip the movie but retain DVD quality and those that rip the movie into a compressed format like avi or a portable format so that it can be played on a mobile phone or iPod.

DVD Smith Movie Backup can backup a DVD to the computer with little user interaction. It can deal with copy protections so that all movies can be copied with ease.

An alternative to that is DVD Fab HD Decrypter which offers all the features of DVD Smith Movie Backup plus the option to make the movie region code free.

Both store the movie in a Video_TS folder on the hard drive which has approximately the same size as the DVD.

The third tool is DVD Shrink which can reduce the size of the ripped movie which comes in handy if you have a DVD-9 movie and want to burn the backup on a DVD-5. DVD Shrink handles all copy protection as well.

Rip movie DVDs in compressed format to the computer:

Tools in this section:

Auto Gordian Knot
Bitripper
Handbrake

Converting movie DVDs into a compressed format has many advantages. One is the ability to store multiple movies in the place that one full DVD rip would take on the hard drive. A general size of around 700 Megabytes for a compressed movie would mean that about six movies fit into the place of one full DVD backup.

Another example where it does make sense is mobile computing. If you want to store movies on your iPhone, mobile phone, netbook or UMPC you have to take size into consideration because they usually come with hard drive or flash drive sizes of 20 Gigabytes or less.

Auto Gordian Knot can convert movie DVDs into avis. Minimal user interaction is required for the process. The only limitation of the program is that it cannot handle copy protected movies. To overcome this users could first backup the movie to hard disk with one of the applications mentioned above and rip it from there.

Handbrake is another tool which can handle basic CSS protection and convert the movie into additional formats like mkv, mp4 and ogm.

Bitripper finally handles DVD copy protection with ease and requires minimal user input to rip the DVD to the computer. The main benefit of Bitripper is its ease of use, no technical knowledge is required to rip the DVDs.

Convert Videos to DVD Format:

Tools in this section:

AVStoDVD
DVD Flick

DVD Flick supports a wide variety of formats which is its greatest strength, a total of 60 video and 45 audio codecs are supported by the application. It supports subtitles, PAL and NTSC DVDs and can burn the created DVD right after the creation has finished.

The biggest advantage of AVStoDVD is the ease of use. Just add videos to the program interface and it will automatically calculate the correct size to fit all the videos on a DVD-5 or DVD-9 depending on the users selection. Everything is created automatically and it can also burn the DVD after the DVD creation process.

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