Good news is: This is no longer necessary. All the arranging of files and folders for an extensive multi-disc burn job is now handled by a software. DiscFit basically turns a set of files and folders into optimized sets ready for burning.

When you start the portable program you are presented with a minimalistic interface. A click on File opens a menu with options to add files or folders that should be included in the burning job.

All files and folders are displayed and their sizes are calculated. This can take some time depending on the selection.

the Target Media menu at the bottom of the screen can be used to selected a specific media type, e.g. DVD, Blu-Ray or CD. The file capacities of the selected disc type are then used to calculate the resulting sets.

It is also possible to set a custom disc size if a custom disc size is needed for a job. A click on the pack button runs rearranges all files and folders so that the least amount of discs are needed to burn all files.

Files inside a folder are kept together, while individual files and folders may be moved around to make optimal use of the disc space of each disc.

There is also an oversized tab for files or folders that are to large to be burned on one disc.

All the user needs to do know is to drag and drop the folders of each set to the disc burning program. This works with popular burning programs like ImgBurn or Nero. Users do however need to make sure that the file selection screen of the burning software is the target of the drop.

DiscFit is a free portable software program for the Windows operating system. Users can download the latest version from the project’s Sourceforge page. (via)

Windows users have lots of alternatives at hand, to name a few: Tiny Burner, ISO CD Burner or Ashampoo Burning Studio Free.

Hamster Free Burning Studio falls right in line with those programs. The program, which is currently available as a beta version at the developer site, supports CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays. The main menu lists the available options. Here it is possible to create a data CD or DVD, or Copy a CD or DVD. Options are provided to switch to a minimal mode or full mode, the latter is suggested as it resembles the interface that most burning programs share.

The limitations to only copy or create CDs or DVDs will likely be lifted once the program leaves beta. For now, it is only possible to run those tasks. This limits the functionality, as it is not possible to use the program to burn a music CD or video DVD at this point in time. The disabled Media Studio button will likely add that functionality to the burning software. Another functionality that is not included yet is the option to backup data, which will also be added in a later version. The final release has the following capabilities:

Hamster Free Burning Studio performs the most popular operations with laser disks: data burning, backup copying, creating music disks, cloning DVDs, CDs or BluRay.

Free Burning Studio can read ISO images and burn those to disc. It can furthermore erase re-writable discs.

The program itself is promising, the lack of features however limits its use right now to copying and burning data discs. Windows users who would like to try Free Burning Studio can download the current program version from the developer website. The software is compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

I recently helped a friend of mine find a new laptop, as his old one was simply not cutting it anymore. I offered to configure the laptop, and one of the few requirements was the installation of a CD and DVD burning software.

My friend was used to heavyweight programs like Nero Burning Rom or Roxio Creator, and I decided to find a similar free burning app for Windows.

True Burner was mentioned recently by several tech blogs that I read in my RSS news reader, and I decided to give it a try to see if it was a suitable candidate.

When I saw the interface of the CD and DVD burning software I knew it was the right program. The interface displays the three supported disc types CD, DVD and Blu-Ray in the left sidebar, and the available burning options in the larger main area of the program window.

The program supports the following operations:

• CD: Create data CD, Create boot CD, Create Mp3 CD, Create audio CD, Burn ISO image, Make CD image, Make boot CD image, Erase CD-RW, Copy CD
• DVD: Create data DVD, Create boot DVD, Create MP3 DVD, Create DVD-Video, Burn ISO image, Make DVD image, Make boot DVD image, Erase DVD-RW, Erase DVD+RW, Copy DVD
• Blu-Ray Disc: Create data BD, Create MP3 BD, Burn ISO image, Make BD Image, Erase BD-RE

Each available entry is linked from the main interface, leaving no room for confusion.

The program switches to a similar user friendly interface once a selection has been made by the user. It avoids to confuse the user with advanced settings and parameters, and concentrates on the information that are required to burn the data to disc.

If you take a look at the data DVD screenshot below you see that it displays only a few controls in the window. It is possible to add files, folders, name the disc, select the disc size in the lower right corner and select a DVD burner if more than one are installed on the system.

A click on Burn burns the compilation to disk. The program leaves virtually no margin for error, as it limits the choices of the user to a minimum. Advanced users may find this irritating at times, but for the average user it is perfect.

True Burner features at a glance:

• Free for personal and commercial use
• Create data, bootable and multisession CD/DVD/Blu-ray Discs
• Create Audio CDs and MP3 CD/DVD/Blu-ray Discs
• Create DVD-Video
• Create and burn boot images
• Copy CDs and DVDs
• Based on award-winning burning software BurnAware 2 SDK
• Supports all current hardware interfaces (IDE/SCSI/USB/1394/SATA)
• Supports UDF/ISO9660/Joliet Bridged file systems (any combination)
• On-the-fly writing for all image types (no staging to hard drive first)
• Auto-verification of written files
• Supports CD-Text and unicode characters
• Supports Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7 (32 and 64 Bit), no drivers required

True Burner is the ideal CD and DVD burning software for users who do not want to mess around with advanced configuration options. It is a dead simple click and go burning software that offers a comprehensive feature set.

True Burner is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows, and available for download at the developer website.

Update: True Burner is no longer available. Check out ImgBurn for an excellent alternative.

Assumptions

The only assumptions this article makes is that you 1) have a working Ubuntu One account and 2) you have a CD burner available. If you do not have a CD burner, you could always just copy that music to an external hard drive or make it available to others with the help of a DAAP server…but that’s another issue.

NOTE: I quickly discovered that, out of the box, Rhythmbox still doesn’t support MP3 playback. This is a bit of a shock since this is the file type that the Ubuntu One Music Store files are sold as. Fear not, you will be prompted to install the proper plugin.

Where did those files go?

One of the first issues you will come across is locating your music. You might assume the music to be in either ~/Music or ~/Downloads. It’s not. It’s carefully “hidden” in ~/.ubuntuone/Purchased from Ubuntu One. This gave me pause for two reasons: 1) That they tried to obfuscate the purchased music and 2) that they used spaces in a directory name (bad form there). As far as I have found, there is no way to change this directory.  You can, however, access those files from the Ubuntu One web interface and you can download the files to wherever you want.

Let’s burn

Now that you know the location of the files, the most obvious choice for burning them would be to use a standard burning software, like Brasero or K3B. You can do that if you like, especially if you just want to copy those MP3 files as “data” files. But if you want to burn an audio cd, why not just do it from within Rhythmbox? You can do that. Here’s how:

1. Select the songs you want to burn (use <Ctrl> to select multiple songs as per normal).
2. Right click and select Add to Playlist.
3. Select New Playlist.
4. Give the Playlist a name.
5. After the files have copied into the new playlist (this happens almost instantly), right-click the playlist and select Create Audio CD.
6. Let the magic happen.

This “magic” is thanks to communication between Rhythmbox and Brasero via a plugin.

Now you might be victim of a current bug that’s plaguing Rhythmbox. If nothing happens (you get no feedback whatsoever) you suffer from this bug. If so, run an update and see if this fixes the issue. This is a known issue and will hopefully be resolved soon. If you do not suffer from this issue, congratulations, you just burned your first audio CD in Rhythmbox.

ImgBurn was recently updated by the developer. The new version is available at the developer’s websites. Regular users of ImgBurn will notice some changes besides the updates to the program itself.

There are two adware related entries that might get installed during the installation of the DVD burning software if the user is not carefully selecting the options.

The program tries to place a Uniblue shortcut on the desktop and to install the Ask Toolbar. Both of which can be unselected so that they are not installed.

More problematic than those choices are three new entries in the Tools menu of the burning software that also lead to the Uniblue website.

These options do however not reduce the value of ImgBurn itself. The developer has fixed more than a dozen bugs in the new version and added or changed dozens of other features as well. Most of these new features and updates are under the hood and will likely not be recognized by most users.

The latest version of the DVD burning software ImgBurn can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

But money is not the only issue for most users. Nero has become bloated over time with lots of additional burning tools that most users do not need. The free CD burning alternatives are usually lightweight and tend to concentrate on the popular operations that most users do when burning CDs.

ImgBurn

The review could probably end here as ImgBurn is a complete CD burning software. It supports a wide variety of disk images, most Microsoft operating systems, video CDs, DVDs, HD DVD and Blu-Ray disks as well as audio CDs.

The only drawback is that its usage can be complicated at the beginning. The developers are however offering guides on their website (linked from the burning software) which guide the user in completing specific tasks.

• Supported disk formats: BIN, CUE, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG and PDI.
• Unicode support: Yes
• Operating Systems: Windows 95+ including 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7
• Video: Video CD, Video DVD, HD DVD Video and Blu-Ray Video support
• Audio CDs: Yes, burn directly from AAC, APE, FLAC, M4A, MP3, MP4, MPC, OGG, PCM, WAV, WMA and WV formats

ImgBurn is a lightweight software that offers CD burning operations for the majority of users out there. It offers a wizard and manual CD burning mode.

ImgBurn Download

CDBurner XP

CDBurner XP is another popular CD burning software. It supports the same amount of disk types that ImgBurn supports including various types of CD and DVD disks but also HD-DVD and Blu-Ray disks.

Usage is a little bit easier than that of ImgBurn but the limited amount of supported disk image formats makes it unusable for some users who need to work with those formats.

• Supported disk formats: ISO but can also convert nrg and bin to ISO.
• Unicode support: Yes
• Operating Systems: Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista/2008/Windows 7
• Video: Video CD, Video DVD, HD DVD Video and Blu-Ray Video support
• Audio CDs: Yes, burn directly from mp2, mp3, wav, bwf,ogg, flac, wma, aiff, wv, ape, mpc, mp4 and m4a formats
• other features: lightscribe support, command line options, cover printing

CDBurner XP download

InfraRecorder

InfraRecorder is an Open Source CD burning software that is provided as a portable version and an installer. The interface is similar to that of CDBurner XP with its two pane explorer like interface.

The free CD burning software has limited disk format support and does not offer the means to burn HD or Blu-Ray videos.

• Supported disk formats: ISO, BIN, CUE
• Unicode support: Yes
• Operating Systems: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003/2008, 32-bit and 64-bit editions
• Video: Video CD and Video DVD support (?)
• Audio CDs: Yes, burn directly from .wav, .wma, .ogg, .mp3 formats
• other features: Open Source, portable version

InfraRecorder download

Explore & Burn

The burning software comes with Windows Explorer integration from where the burning operations are started. This makes the program comfortable to use but it also means that several features are missing from the program.

• Supported disk formats: ISO, IMG
• Unicode support: Yes
• Operating Systems: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003/2008, 32-bit and 64-bit editions
• Video: Video CD and Video DVD support (?)
• Audio CDs: Yes

Ashampoo Burning Studio Free

This is a free version of a commercial software from Ashampoo. It offers a solid functionality and support for a limited number of disk image formats.

• Supported disk formats: ISO, CUE, BIN
• Unicode support: Yes
• Operating Systems: Windows 2K / XP / Vista and Windows 7
• Video: Create Video CDs and Video DVDs, burn CD, DVD and Blu-Ray video disks.
• Audio CDs: Yes, support of WAV, MP3, FLAC, WMA and Ogg Vorbis
• other features: audio CD ripper

download Ashampoo Burning Studio Free

Verdict:

ImgBurn is the free CD burning software with the largest support of different disk image formats and audio formats making it an ideal solution for users who want the greatest compatibility.

Are you using one of those CD burning programs that are reviewed in this post? Or are you using another program that has not been included but should be? Let us know in the comments.

But don’t expect such a powerful tool to be as simple to use as, say K3B. Acetone takes some getting used to. In this article I am going to show you how to install Acetone, mount an ISO image, and (of course) download a video from Youtube for burning.

Installation

You can install Acetone from pre-compiled binaries for the following distributions:

• Ubuntu
• OpenSuse
• Fedora
• Archlinux
• Slackware

You can also install from source, which can be found here. Since my current desktop of choice is still Ubuntu, we’ll work with that installation. You will not be able to find Acetone in your repository, without adding a new line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file. The line you need to add is:

deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu karmic-getdeb apps

Once you have that line in place you will need to download and install the GPG key for the repository. This is done with the following command:

wget -q -O- http://archive.getdeb.net/getdeb-archive.key | sudo apt-key add -

With the apt line in place and the GPG key installed you are ready to rock. Go to this GetDeb page and click on the “Install this now” button to open up GDebi for installation. You will have to enter your sudo password for this to continue. Once the installation is complete, you will find Acetone in the Sound and Video sub-menu of the Applications menu.

Usage

Figure 1

When you fire up Acetone you will first have to take care of a couple of configurations. These configurations are very simple and are handled through a user-friendly Preferences window (see Figure 1). You will need to configure:

• File manager
• Database (location to save file)

You can also configure other options, but the above two options must be configured before you can continue to use the tool.

Figure 2

The Acetone main window (see Figure 2) is quite simple to navigate. The main window is set up in three panes:

Left pane: This shows the “database” of your images. This is really just a listing of the images you have created.

Upper right pane: This is the working pane where you mount, unmount, and burn images.

Lower right pane: This pane displays the progress of your jobs.

Now, let’s mount an ISO to work with. I am going to assume you have an ISO image downloaded to your machine. What you want to do is:

• Click the Mount button.
• Navigate to the ISO image you want to mount.
• Click Open to mount the drive.

The mounted image will now appear in a newly opened file manager window. You can feel free to work with that image before you unmount it.

Create ISO from folder

You can also create an ISO from a folder with Acetone. To do this follow these steps:

1. Click on the Image Conversion menu.
2. Select Generate ISO from Folder.
3. Navigate to the folder you want to use.
4. Give the ISO a name and a location.
5. Click Save.

That’s it.

Download video from Youtube

I am not quite sure why this feature was added, but it’s nice and it works very well. To accomplish this follow these steps:

1. Click on the Video menu.
2. Click on the Youtube Download Video sub-menu.
3. Select either Anonymous or User Account entry (depending on if you have an account).
4. Paste the URL to the video in the resulting window.
5. Click OK.
6. Navigate to a folder where you would like to save your video.
7. Click OK.

This process can take a while, depending upon your connection speed and the file size. Once this is complete you will have a converted mp4 file to view.

Final thoughts

Acetone is a very handy application. We’ll cover some of the more advanced features of this tool at a later date. Until then, enjoy this powerful, useful tool.

A: A Spanish oven that is placed under a table in order to heat those sitting at the table.

Correct, but not in terms of Linux.

A 2.0: A GTK+ front end for cdrtools, growisofs, and (optionally) libburn.

Correct!

If you have used a modern Linux system then you know how easy the task of burning CDs has become. I have covered the K3B tool as well as burning CDs from the command line. And although both methods have their merits, neither are as simple to use as the Brasero CD/DVD burner.

Most modern Linux distributions that use GTK+ (in other words, GNOME) ship with Brasero installed as the default burner. The reason is two-fold: It is simple to use, and it integrates seamlessly with Nautilus (the GNOME file manager).

In this tutorial you will see how simple it is to use Brasero to create a new data CD, to copy a CD, and to burn a CD image.

Features

Brasero offers many features.

Data:

• Supports both CD and DVD formats.
• Burns on the fly.
• Automatic filtering for unwanted files.
• Multisession support.

Audio:

• Writes CD-TEXT information automatically.
• Edits CD-TEXT information.
• Supports all audio formats that are included in gstreamer.

Copying:

• Copies on the fly.
• Single session DVDs and any format of CD.

Of course the best feature of all is that Brasero is simply as easy as it gets.

Automatic burning

Figure 1

When you insert a blank CD or DVD Brasero will open up a window (see Figure 1) that allows you to select what action to take. The default action (though not configured to happen automatically) is to open Brasero. You can make sure this happens every time you insert a blank CD/DVD by clicking the Always perform this action checkbox before you click OK.

Figure 2

When you click OK the Brasero file browser window will open (see Figure 2). This window allows you to simply drag and drop files in order to create a data CD. You will notice, when Brasero opens, you have one tab open. That tab is the burn tab. The “address” of that tab is:

burn:///

What can you do with that? Simple. Open up a Nautilus window and enter the burn address in the location bar. What happens? Nautilus automatically switches from standard file manager to Brasero burner, where you can drag folders/files for burning.

There are two ways to drag and drop files. The first way is to open up a Nautilus window and drag your files from there into the Brasero window. The other way is to open up another tab in Brasero, navigate to the folder/files you want to burn, and drag them onto the burn tab.

Figure 3

When you insert a writable media what opens is Nautilus in the burn address. If you open up the full blown Brasero, you will see a very different window (see Figure 3). As you can see this is where you can do the real work. From within this window you can create all of the various projects Brasero can handle.

Say you want to create an audio project from within Brasero. Click on the Audio project button and the brasero window will change according to the project you have selected to create (see Figure 4).

Figure 4

From within this new window you will see just how easy it is to add or remove files for this project. After you add the folders/files you simply have to select your media and click the Burn button.

Final thoughts

Brasero has brought to Linux one of the easiest methods for burning disks of any operating system. So if burning CDs/DVDs is something you have considered an obstacle keeping you from adopting Linux, consider that obstacle officially, and permanently, removed.

One great way of finding out how to perform a special operation in ImgBurn is to take a look at the guides that have been created by the developers. These guides explain how to burn a certain type of disk. They include guides on how to burn bootable Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating system disks, audio CDs, DVD video, image files such as ISO or IMG and double-layer or Bu-Ray disks.

Even users with past experience with other DVD burning software might need to take a look at the guides to ensure they are performing the right steps to burn the disk the right way. All ImgBurn guides can be found on the ImgBurn website.

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

The good news is that burning CDs in Linux is very simple and doesn’t require the addition of third-party software. Let’s take a look at how to handle this job in a default GNOME 2.24.2 installation.

Where is the application?

Menu Entry

In the latest GNOME there is an application for burning CDs but you don’t really need to know where it is or what it is called. Why? If you click on the Places menu you will see an entry titled CD/DVD Creator.

Once you click on this entry a special Nautilus window will open that allows you to drag and drop files into the window for burning.

The Burn Window

Once this new Nautilus window is open you can drag and drop files from other Nautilus windows. Once you have added the files and/or directories you want to burn onto CD you just have to insert a blank disk into your drive and then click the Write To Disk button in the burn window.

Options

When you click Write To Disk you will then need select your device (if you have more than one), give the disk a name, select the write speed, and click Write.

A progress window will open during the writing of the disk. When the disk is complete the CD will eject and you’re finished.

Simple!

Final Thoughts

One of the only downfalls to this system is you can not burn ISO images. For that you will want something like K3B (check out my gHacks article “Burn CD and DVD Images with K3B“). Other than that, the GNOME CD/DVD burn process is as simple as it gets.

K3B (KDE Burn Baby Burn) is a CD/DVD authoring software written for the KDE desktop that supports nearly every feature you have come to love with such tools. K3B takes this one step further by being free. And unlike many other similar tools, K3B can burn bootable ISO images so you can keep that free-install smell on your PC at all times.

Burning an ISO image with K3B is quite simple. The first step is to start the application. K3B is generally found in the Audio or Multimedia menu entry within the Start (or “K”) menu. Once K3B is open you will want to either click on the Burn CD Image (or Burn DVD ISO Image) button or click on the Tools menu from the menu bar.

K3B Main Window

If you go the Tools menu route you will see an entries with the same title as the buttons (“Burn CD Image” and “Burn DVD ISO Image”).

When you select to burn an image a new window will appear. In this new window you have to click directory button in the Image To Burn section and locate the ISO file you want to burn.

The Burn Image Window

Once you have located the image K3B will run a checksum on the image to make sure it matches. When the checksum is finished, and you have inserted the proper medium in your drive, you can click the Start button to begin the burn process.

If you are unsure of your setup, or if you are low on burnable media, you can always select the Simulate button (under Settings) to simulate the burn process. If the process will run successfully you can then uncheck Simulate and run the process as normal.

Final Thoughts

K3B is one of the finest CD/DVD authoring applications available. And having the built-in ability to burn ISO images helps to stand above many other (more costly) alternatives.

Ashampoo Burning Studio Free is an old version of the burning software of Ashampoo which has been released to the public. Everyone can download and use it without having to register or pay money for it. It starts up reasonably fast without splash screens and long loading times. All operations are selectable from the main menu. Some operations are further divided, the Burn Files and Folders category contains options to burn a new disk or update an existing one.

Burning Studio Free supports CD, DVD and Blu-Ray disks. Here is what you can do with the burning software:

• Burn files to disk
• Burn or rip music.
• Burn movies
• Copy a disk
• Create or burn disk images
• Erase rewritable disks
• Backup or restore files

The list is pretty comprehensive. The most popular image formats (img, iso, cue/bin) are supported by Burning Studio Free which should be sufficient for most users.

Most impressive is the responsive interface which is much faster than that of Nero and similar applications.

If you are looking for a fast, responsive and high-quality burning software that does not cost a dime you should take a closer look at Ashampoo Burning Software Free. It might exactly be what you are looking for.

I switched immediately from IMGBurn to it. IMGBurn was unfortunately rather complex to use. One example. To burn mp3 to disk one had to create a cue file before that was possible. Ashampoo simply takes the mp3 and burns them right away.

The disc burning software can burn audio and data CDs and DVDs. The disc burning software is compatible to all 32-bit editions of Windows and can either be installed or run as a portable application. The major selling point of cdrtfe is the clean interface that provides all disc burning options in tabs in the main window.

Not all tabs are equally important. The four most important ones are Data CD, Audio CD, CD Image and Video DVD. Files can be added easily using the Windows file browser. One important tip is that the size bar at the bottom does not change automatically depending on the files that are added to the disc burning software. A right-click makes it possible to change the size from 650 Megabytes to dual-layer DVDs with 7.96 Gigabytes.

There are unfortunately a few disadvantages that might not play a role for most users but surely will disappoint a few. The only supported image format is ISO which means that other image formats like img are not supported by ctrtfe. Users who will only burn data and audio CDs and DVDs but no images will be perfectly happy with the disc burning software while those that work with multiple image formats will have to find another tool or a possibility to convert image formats into ISO.

Still; cdrtfe is a feature rich portable Open Source disc burning software. Everyone else should take a look at the free burning software recommendations to find a suitable CD and DVD burning software.

Let me explain the functions that I really need it to support. The software should be able to burn CDs and DVDs both in image formats like ISO or IMG but also folders and files for archiving purposes. It should be able to burn music CDs although I rarely use that feature nowadays. It would be nice if it would have one or two context menu entries that would allow me to burn images right from the context menu.

That’s really all I need. Everything else would be a bonus unless it would slow down the application. A perfect application would load as fast as possible, show no splash screen and let me pick what I want to do right away. Now it’s your turn, what is the best free burning software in your opinion ?

The list of free CD and DVD burning software tries to list all applications that can be used as an replacement. Those programs had to meet some requirements though. They had to be free, be able to burn CDs and DVDs, be able to burn images like iso and be able to burn files from the hard drives which includes audio and video CDs and DVDs.

The requirements have reduced the field quite a bit because several applications support only a few of them. Burrrn for instance is only able to burn audio CDs. It’s an excellent program but it can’t burn anything else but audio CDs. The same can be said for ImgBurn which does a very good job when it comes to disc images but can’t burn files from your hard drive.

It basically comes down to the following programs: Infra Recorder and CD Burner XP

All two open fast and are very responsive to user input. I tried to write a short description of each application below concentrating on strengths and weaknesses.

CD Burner XP

CD Burner XP looks clean and crisp and supports many features when it comes to burning CDs and DVDs. As with Infra Recorder it only supports a limited amount of image formats, those are iso, nrg and bin. Besides that it’s complete. You can burn audio and video CDs and DVDs with ease.

It supports multi-sessions and bootable media and even Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, and Double layer DVDs.

Infra Recorder:

Infra Recorder can be installed as a desktop or portable application and supports most operations that I require. A major drawback in my opinion is the missing support for several disc image formats such as img, mds and nrg. It only supports iso, bin and cue images.

It can create Video DVDs and Audio CDs as well as Data DVDs and CDs which will be sufficient for most users I think. I personally would not use it because of the lacking support for several image formats though.

Conclusion:

Both applications are fine programs and both lack support for several important image formats. I personally prefer Infra Recorder though because it does not open a “what do you want to burn” popup at startup. It all comes down to personal preference at the end I think.

I personally think that both can replace commercial products such as Nero unless support for image formats such as nrg or mds is needed.

The firmware of your burner has information on various manufacturers and their products including the maximum speed of the media. If a CD or DVD is used and no information can be found the burner will not use the maximum speed but a slower speed and increase that over time – this means of course that the process takes longer even though the burner and the blank disc are capable of faster speeds.

Fixing this is probably easy. The first step would be to make sure that your burner has the latest firmware installed; The firmware page collects and tracks firmwares of various burners, check them out. Make sure you read the instructions on that page before you proceed, your burner could stop working if the upgrade fails.

You should check the website of the manufacturer of the burner for firmware upgrades as well, it is always better to use the offical source if available.

If you can’t find an upgrade for your burner or the upgrade did not help in your special case you can do the following to speed up the process:

• Make sure that your burner is connected correctly to your system, if it is possible make him secondary master.
• Check the current transfer mode (DMA) of the burner. (Hardware Manager)

You can also check blank DVDs and CDs and find out which are best suited for your burner and purchase them from then on. DVD Identifier checks DVD and displays information about the manufacturer of the blank discs, nero cd speed does the same for CDs.

Once you know the manufacturer of the media and checked that you can burn with max speed you start buying only media from that manufacturer from then on. Please note that the name of the company on the blank media not necesarily reflects the real manufacturer.