CD Burning Software
 

I recently upgrade my computer's hard disk to 40 MB. I decided to start fresh and reinstall Winblows and everything else to get rid of some of the 5+ years of cruft. The only thing I'm missing is Easy CD Creator!! The CD's around here somewhere....

Anyway, I thought, hey, it's an excuse to upgrade to something newer. But what? Any suggestions? The latest version of Easy CD creator has gotten lukewarm reviews, but so has most everything else I've looked at.

I far prefer that "Nero Burning Rom", but do they even sell it without a CD burner?

I also like Nero. It's the shizzle to my nizzle.

I'm not sure that you can get it without a CD-RW drive. Actually, I'm sure you can. I just don't know where.

It's more lightweight than Roxio's Easy CD Creator, which might be good for you, since I recall you saying that you had a rather modest computer.

http://www.ahead.de

It's not too difficult to find an OEM version of Nero 5.5 for cheap-- most of the online-bargain sites list it sooner or later. The OEM version will be keyed to a specific make of burner; if it matches, that's a nice surprise. If it doesn't (like in my case, where I had an LG burner and a Samsung Nero OEM), write to them, and you can upgrade to the full Nero 5.5 for $19. That $19 plus the OEM price is usually far less than you'd pay for the complete version in a store.

There are two mildly annoying things about Nero. One is that when you're burning audio CDs, you cannot automatically normalize the volume levels of the source files (so that you don't switch tracks and SUDDENLY THE GODDAMN OUTPUT IS THIS LOUD!!!!! MP3 CD Maker (a much older burning program) does this. Another bugaboo is that even when ISO Level 2, ASCII and Joliet are selected, you're limited to 63-character filenames; this is occasionally a problem for me. DiscJuggler 4.0 gets around that limitation.

Easy CD Creator is extremely generic -- if you get it free with your system, that's nice, but I wouldn't pay for it. On the flip side, I have paid for:

* Nero 5.5
* DiscJuggler 4.0 (very useful for Dreamcast hacking/emulation)
* CDRWin 4.0A (the granddaddy of all Disc-at-Once burn programs)
* CloneCD 4 (a wonderful program, if your burner supports its modes)
* an Easy CD Creator 4.x that came with my system
* Easy-CD Pro 95 (I got it free, and it's useful for a specific task (Sega CD backups).)
* MP3 CD Maker (an oldie that was among the first to rip MP3 to audio CD directly, and can normalize)

I gotta send my shot out to Nero, and yes you can buy it without a burner, I've even seen it a a Staples.

Also if you just want to burn mp3 files definitly give a look at Feurio, its just for MP3's and works great. Plus you can use it for free with some Popups(not spyware) to ask you to register as you are getting ready to burn, but just push close. ;)

Nero it is, I think. You can go to their web site (www.nero.com)and download a time-limited evaluation. That's one point in its favor. Another point is that the minimum system requirement is a Pentium 90. My computer isn't THAT antiquated, but software bloat pisses me off, and I like buying stuff that does its job efficiently. Also, it managed to copy two CDs that had stymied Easy CD Creator. (One has some kind of error, one was too big to be copied).

It doesn't take much to stymie Easy CD Creator. If you're doing very basic tasks (burning audio CDs from standard MP3s, backing up PC data), it'll do, but I'm generally unimpressed by it.

And whaddya know -- I did some homework, and Nero can normalize MP3s after all. Now all I have to do is figure out a way around the 63-char barrier and it'll be just about perfect...

If you're building CDs with your own files, Nero will do nicely. If you're backing up existing CDs, check to see if your burner is compatible with <a href="http://www.elby.ch/en/products/clone_cd/index.html">CloneCD</a> -- that'll back up damn near anything.