by I don’t know how many e-mails I’ve received asking me about alternative solutions to commercial CD and DVD burning applications like Nero and Roxio, so I’ve finally decided to put together a short but sweet list of free applications so you can create your own CDs and DVDs at home. Read on for the full list, and yes, I’ll be doing Mac and Linux versions of the roundup soon.
- Burnatonce– the basic installation lets you burn CDs without restrictions, but if you want to burn DVDs, you’ll need to install a separate shareware application (probably to avoid legal problems). With Burtatonce, you can create audio and data CDs. It supports burning ISO, CUE, and TOC images, and best of all, will automatically convert FLAC, MP2, MP3, OGG, and WAV files to audio CD.
- CDBurnerXP Pro– this is the solution I used for a long time before going back to Nero, and is one of the best, in my opinion. Not only can you create audio, data, and video discs on both CDs and DVDs, but it will also rip CDs, convert different disc image and audio formats, lets you create covert art, and more. I highly recommend this solution.
- DeepBurner (Free version)– a pretty good solution for creating audio and data CDs and DVDs, with a nice Windows Explorer-like interface. The free version is only available for personal use.
- GUIs for CDRTools– this is not really one program, but a collection of small programs which act as frontends to the free, command line CD creation tool, CDRTools. Easy Burning is one of the best, and easily integrates into Windows 98 or higher, offering basic burning tools. The page has other tools available, like ISOBurn to burn ISO images to CD.
- ISORecorded Power Toy- Windows XP has basic CD and DVD burning capabilities, but you cannot burn ISO images, which is where this tool comes in. The original version works great, but works only on Windows XP with up to Service Pack 1. There are other versions available for Service Pack 2, but I’ve had trouble getting them to run properly.
[Via TipMonkies]
