DVD/CD burning software: Roxio? Nero? Pyro? Something else?

[korz]

I'm in the market for DVD/CD burning software.

What I need it for is:
1. burning .mp3 CD's from my personal CD's to use on a portable CD-MP3 player,

2. burning backups of audio (and non-audio files, I guess) onto CD's and DVD's,

3. burning audio CD's of my songs to send to music publishers, ad agencies, record companies, etc.

I have read reviews comparing the latest Nero (which the reviews say is more powerful, but has a crappy UI) or the latest Roxio Creator (which is said to be less powerful, but easy to use)

I wouldn't mind a simple DVD authoring utility... I just would want to edit and index home videos from miniDV and VHS.

One feature I think might be useful (I think only Roxio has it) is where you can save streaming audio to hard disk... I only have time to listen to music for pleasure in the car... at work they won't let us listen to streaming audio because of the bandwidth it consumes, but after hours or at home, I could save, burn to CD and listen in the car.

Another feature I can't seem to find who has it, was the ability to take CD's and create virtual drives on your hard disk, so you don't have to put in various CD's when you want to switch between PC games. This would be very handy for me because my kids are small and I don't trust them yet to be swapping CD's, so my wife or I have to do it. It would be so much easier if I could just put all their frequently played games onto hard disk and let them pick what they want without bugging us (I have the PC in a locked cabinet, so we'd still have to power up for them, but not having to swap CD's would be great). Does anyone know who has this feature?

I suppose that I could just use Windows XP's burning functionality, but I've had bad luck with that. I have an older version of Roxio's EZ CD Creator, but I think it doesn't do DVD's and my new PC has a dual-layer DVD burner.

My main issue is with robustness. I have recently burned a half dozen coasters with the (4.something) version of Roxio I have. I've had far too many unreadable CD's lately. Most of them were written on an external USB2.0 DVD+-RW/+-R drive from BUSlink. During the writing, there was no indication that there were any problems.

Hmmm... upon further inspection, it appears that my DVD burner came with a copy of Nero OEM Suite: Nero Smartstart2, Express 6, InCD4, Vision Express 3-SE, PhotoShow Express, Showtime 2, Media Home, Media Player, Cover Designer, and Toolkit. Someone at egghead said that these are limited edition versions and they only work for a month or something like that. I suppose I could try it, but I'm planning on placing an order with newegg very soon and would like to add the burning sw in because they have a $10 off if you buy $250. Even if I used this software for a few days, you really don't get a feel for software until you've used it for a few months, so I'd like your opinions.

What say ye?

Thanks.


Al.

[MikeQuell]

I'll be honest. It's late and I didnt read through your whole post but I did catch this.

"Another feature I can't seem to find who has it, was the ability to take CD's and create virtual drives on your hard disk, so you don't have to put in various CD's"

If you create a disc image (Nero does this) on your computer you can use Daemon Tools to create the virtual drive and boot it. It is free software however I dont know if its compatible with a Mac. Check it out...sorry I couldn't help more.

http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/announcements.php

- Q

[martin armsby]

Get (or upgrade to) the full version of Nero 7 - it really covers a lot of basic stuff in a really useable way.
Also it has a Certified Dolby 5.1 ENCODER included for free !

Cheers

M

[korz]

Thanks. I am on a PC, by the way... I should have specified. I'm in the process of building my second audio PC and will put it all into my sig soon.

Perhaps the Nero I have won't turn into a pumpkin in 30 days and that "disk image" you mention is what I need. However, having to boot from a different virtual drive just to change to a different game is not going to be any easier for me. It's beyond the abilities of my kids (6,6, and 3) so it involves me again. I'm no longer in a real hurry on this. I went ahead and place the order for the hardware I needed and put off this burning software for later.

My request still stands: any and all opinions for or against Roxio, Nero, and Pyro are greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much.

Al.

System 1: 2.53GHz P4, ASUS P4B533-E w/845PE chipset, 1G (2 x 512M) Mushkin 2-2-2 DDR, Maxtor 7200 ATA133 8M buffer hard disks (60G OS/app, 80G audio), Matrox G400 video, Raidmax case with 400W power supply (just bought a Gigabyte PCU-31VM cooler for it and a 20dB cooling fan); WinXP Home, Sonar 5; Echo Audio Layla 24/96; ART DI/O; Behringer V-Amp2.

System 2: AMD 64 X2 3800+, Gigabyte K8NSXP Ultra-939 w/nForce3 Ultra chipset, 2G (2 x 1G) OCZ 2-3-2-5 Platinum DDR, Maxtor 250G 7200 16M buffer hard disks (ATA133 OS/app/backups, SATA150 audio), Matrox P650 video, Raidmax Ninja case with 450W and extra 23dB Silverstone front fan, Gigabyte PCU-31VM cooler; WinXP Pro, Sonar 5; EMU 1820M, Behringer ADA8000, ART DI/O, V-Amp2, and a bunch of old outboard equipment from my analogue tape days.

[korz]

Bump.

I can't believe that nobody has opinions on Roxio, Pyro, or Nero CD/DVD burning utilities...

Thanks.

Al.

[130dB]

I'm partial to Nero, but I don't have as much experience with the others. Just my opinion and 2¢.

[Bops2000]

i use nero 6 for most commom cd burns.
I also use CD aechitect for different applications.
I have used roxio, mand it seems a little more user
friendly than Nero.

[Bops2000]

Ps I am looking for a decent typist program for forum replies

[af-nagal]

Nero I have no experience with. Roxio is what I use because it came free with my CD-Burner. I use to use GearPro which I really liked(http://www.gearsoftware.com/products...ofessional.cfm) but the copy I have does not work on XP and it is a bit expensive (has come down in price). Once I have some extra cash, I might go back to it.

[mpd]

I use whatever comes with the computer I am using for data CDs. I use CD Architect for audio CDs.

[mjmeche]

Nero, will do all of that, Roxio or whatever they are now is good, but it almost assumes that you are an idiot. Nero GUI and interface are a lot more involved, but you can do a lot of things. If you are looking to back off your whole drive then I highly recommend Norton Ghost. If you just want to back off certain files then try Backup Plus. Although Nero has an option to backoff files too. Nero let's you make images on your hard disk and load them up as virtual drives. works great with sony walkman's hint

[sbrager]

Nero is my first choice.

I've used other burning software in the past but when Nero came bundled with a drive I'd just purchased, I gave it a try and never looked back. Today's Nero (version 7) comes with many features. One which some like is Nero Express which has a simple yet powerful interface which makes it easy for the novice to work with. I prefer the advanced interface which enables me to have access to the rich set of features.

Nero also has a trial version which you can download from their website.

http://www.nero.com

If you still want more information about other burning programs, head over to the CDFreaks website and read what others have to say about Nero, Roxio, and other burners. Their website is:

http://www.cdfreaks.com

I hope this helps.

Stan

[Sonic Valley]

I use whatever comes with the computer I am using for data CDs. I use CD Architect for audio CDs.

Same here......

[korz]

Thanks everyone for your comments. I did find cdfreaks.com and not only is there good information there on burning software, I found out that not all drives are created equal. Some are far better than others. I was lucky that one of my drives was one of the good ones. I ended up replacing the CD-RW drive on the other machine with a DVD+-RW drive, based upon the cdfreaks.com website posters and I'm very pleased with it. Even better, the new drive came with Nero 6.0 and it's *much* better than the Roxio products I've used. I've also got Pyro on my laptop, but it doesn't have a burner. The only way to burn on the laptop is to use a USB2.0 DVD/CD burner I have and I do that very infrequently.

I also learned something CRITICAL on the cdfreaks.com website:

Most cheap CD/DVD blank media only lasts 5 or 10 years!

I can confirm this from personal experience. Some Pioneer blank CD-R's I've used were losing data within a month! According to the cdfreaks.com website, the very best media is by MITSUI and you can find it mailorder (Musician's Friend sells them, for example), but they are very expensive, like $2.00 per disk in large quantities. The second best brand is Taiyo Yuden and you can get TY CD-R's for less than $0.25 in bulk and TY DVD+R's or -R's for less than $0.33 in bulk, but beware because there are a lot of fake TY disks out there, especially on ebay. Authentic MITSUI and TY disks will last 100+ years and work very well with most brands of burners and readers. I've found that the best prices for TY are at supermediastore.com and rima.com. They will usually price-match each other, which is nice if each site has something you want on sale.

So, check out cdfreaks.com, as Stan mentioned... it's a great resource. If you're in a hurry and don't have time to visit, my recommendations for DVD/CD burners are the Benq 1655 (or any 16xx model where xx is 45 or higher) and the NEC ND3440 (or any higher 3xxx models). For media, as I said above, buy only TY and MITSUI, and you can be sure it's authentic if you buy from supermediastore.com and rima.com.

Thanks all.

Al.

[samuel]

i've always trusted on Imtoo software, it provides a whole suite of converters for various audio /video formats conversion. and it has been updated with new versions providing more features.