OT - is there any decent DVD burning software? (+RANT)

You should just use Linux and then all of your problems will magically go away!

Oh wait, you wanted your actual situation addressed. I'm assuming since you're playing with Nero that you're on a Windows flavor (XP if you're lucky). Here on my work machine I have very good luck with a program called CDBurnerXP. The graphics are a bit goofy, but it pretty much does what it's told, and the price (free) is right.

--
Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology
Email address is currently out of order

Rob, Thanks for the quick response. I'll give it a look, and yes it is XP. I liked your first line. I have one too: Don't worry, Obama will fix it!

Scott

I've had good luck with Roxio Media Creator (or similar name). I use it to burn data backups onto a DVD-R. Each backup (once a week) is about 2.6GB.

If you're running on a machine with problematic hardware or software, in the past I've used CDRWIN

to make CDs. I haven't checked on their software for a while, but it might burn DVDs now (used to be just CDs).

Good Luck, The Lizard.

If you're using Nero, avoid anything above version 6. I have Nero Express 6 and I've done over a hundred discs of various kinds including CD and DVD, both single and double layer, with video and data, and even LightScribe labels. I've never had a single problem with it and all the discs play perfectly. It installs in less than a minute and uses about 45 MB once installed.

For some inexplicable reason they totally butchered this product when they hit version 8. It's horribly bloated and it can't even create a bootable disc like version 6 could. I don't know if version 6 is still available anywhere.

(snip)

Ditto here, I haven't gone past 6 myself. Even 6 has some problems - mainly with the video suite - so I stick to creating data discs only and use other software for creating video DVDs - not that I need to do that much these days now that I can stream wirelessly to my PS3... ;)

Regards,

--
Mark McDougall, Engineer
Virtual Logic Pty Ltd, 
21-25 King St, Rockdale, 2216
Ph: +612-9599-3255 Fax: +612-9599-3266

Alternatively, you could use working solutions from the Linux world ported to the Windows world...

is a simple gui for running the windows port of cdrecord (the standard tool in *nix). There are no cool graphics, no automatic updates, and few extras (a bit of audio file conversion on the fly). It's a very small download, and does exactly what it says on the tin.

I haven't used anything else for CD/DVD burning for 5 years or more (and cdrecord on windows without a front-end for longer than that).

I have used some of the earlier versions (4?), but it was years ago. I was hoping I was missing out on something good, but it wasn't the case. For me, a large part of the problem is the feature bloat. I really wanted data burning. All that other stuff is useless to me.

I should plug the freeware program I used. It's called burn4free and it worked quite well. Did the job I wanted.

Scott

was

r me,

Good that you found one that works. I wouldn't be too hard on the creators of Roxio, Nero, etc - there are memory leaks in the Windoze file system big enough to float a Prius. Finding burning software that doesn't trip over that can be tough.

As for most things it is available via emule, bittorrent etc. For a nice opensource utility try infrarecorder on sourceforge.

Regards Anton

Not Really Me expounded in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

Well, whatever you do, do not pay real money for Roxio Easy Creator 9.x. I bought it with my Veesta machine, and it and its update have never worked for me. I paid about $100 for two coffee coasters. I also let them know what I thought about that too!

After I bought Roxio 9 (it claimed to work for Vista), they soon switched to Version 10 after releasing one update (which doesn't fix the problems).

So 10.x+ might work by now, but they won't get another hundred bucks from me.

My son gave up and used some shareware thing off the net. Though I don't think it does DL. I've also given up on the DL discs that I bought-- nothing but trouble. I forget the brand. Maybe I bought forgeries.

Anyway, I do backups on USB external disk drives now. 500 Gb. It takes about a week the first time around, with all the interruptions (cats pulling out cable etc.) You'll need to buy software to do that-- ms can't do that right either.

Warren.