Oct 10 2006
CD Burning
rev. 11 January 2008
- cdrtfe (cdrtools frontend)
- License: Open Source
- Description: A powerful tool for advanced users, this frontend to cdrtools can do just about everything, even though it doesn’t have a slick interface like some of its competitors.
CDBurnerXP Pro- License: Freeware
- Description: While perhaps not as full-featured as the industry standard, Nero, this free burning program can provides basic burning capabilities (data discs, audio discs, boot discs, burning from images, etc) for the user who doesn’t want to shell out $50 for professional software. The next major version release will require the .NET 2.0 platform.
InfraRecorder- License: Open Source
- Description: InfraRecorder is a new Windows frontend to classic commandline utilities like
cdrdao. Though still early in development, it sports a really slick interface and support for a variety of different burning options (dual-layer dvd, music and audio CD, image creation/burning, etc). It supports audio formats based on plugins, and by default can read Vorbis, WMA, WAV—MP3 support can be added by means of an additional downloaded plugin. My one gripe so far is that the program doesn’t support FLAC files.
- Burrrn
- License: Freeware(?)
- Description: Burrrn is a simple GUI burner for audio CDs. To the best of my knowledge, it doesn’t do data CDs. Still, it has pretty extensive support for different audio formats, and plenty of options for the fickle burner.
ImgBurn- License: Freeware
- Description: ImgBurn is a slightly revised burning engine from the last official release of DVD-Decrypter (before development was stopped by legal issues). It only burns images, rather than makes them, but can be a handy replacement for other omni-burners like Alcohol (or in conjunction with Daemon Tools, which offers similar virtual drive functionality but not burning).
My latest (7 - series) Nero is, like you say, crap and won’t now copy discs from original material.
Can I go back to an earlier version or is there an alternative Burner which will do the job?
Acoustica is my program of choice for general use but the Nero facility was useful.
Many thanks, if you can assist. (I appreciate this is outside the line of comment you would normally receive.)
Sincerely,
David Kemp, Cape Town, South Africa.
I don’t know about the qualities of Nero compared to others (I’ve only used Nero thus far), but its WAV editor comes in handy for making ringtones to FTP into my Nokia cell phone.
But there are other WAV editors available for free–e.g. Audacity
Can you please direct me to a CD Burner/Player system which will (a) copy discs, as Nero does
(b) allow me to transfer music files to an external drive (Mediabox) connected to mu USB port.
David, most of these programs will allow you to copy discs. I know, at the very least, that InfraRecorder and cdrtfe will both do so.
As per your second requirement, I’m a little puzzled as to what exactly you mean. Can you explain what your setup is?
Could you please tell me what the best program would be for burning image slideshows with music onto cd’s.
Thanks
John
It’s not my list but personally I don’t think I could recommend DeepBurner. It’s so crippled it’s nearly useless. :( Though InfraRecorder on the other hand is an amazing suite of tools, thank you for that.
I’ll probably re-evaluate DeepBurner at some point in the future.
By the way, InfraRecorder has a slick interface, but cdrtfe is even more powerful.
In an earlier comment I mentioned I was using Acoustica, which has a MP3 burning facility - except I can’t get mine to work, despite trying the various alternatives suggested by the program. I know Rhapsody offers a similar facility but am reluctant to pay out again for a program which I don’t want in its entirety. Can you (or anyone) suggest an alternative which works satisfactorily? I want to burn my MP3 files onto CD for playing in my car unit which allows the MP3/CD option and my home stereo/DVD player. Any suggestions will be very much appreciated. I have tried the Website MP3 Daily.com, but not found what I am looking for.
David, is MP3/CD a different standard? Or is it just a data CD with mp3s on it? If that’s the case, any of the above-mentioned burners should be fine for you.
Can you tell me what the difference in quality is between burning a music CD-R from an ISO image and burning from .wav files created on a HD?
Realistically? Nothing. But that’s predicated upon two things: