Free DVD Burning Software
I want to create a backup of my photos and home videos, but I have several gigabytes of data, so I want to put it all on DVD discs. Can you recommend any free DVD burning software? |
DVD Burning Software
Remember CD-ROM discs? Soon CDs will join floppy discs in the pages of history, filed under "obsolete." Most users still have the ability to use CDs but every day fewer actually do so. The new removable medium for long-term storage of data is the DVD disc.
A DVD disc looks almost the same as a CD: same size, same shiny plastic platter. Slight color variations in the shiny coating on a disc are sometimes the only clue to what format it's for. But DVD discs hold about 8 times more data than CDs (twice that if you have a double-sided DVD), and that makes DVD the preferred choice for today's offline storage needs.
Naturally, there is software for copying data from one source to a DVD disc. The copying process is called "burning" a DVD because a laser beam literally melts tiny pits into the shiny surface of a disc to record bits of data. DVD burning software manages the selection of files to be copied; the order in which they will be burned to disc; the steady feeding of data to the DVD drive; and the verification that the data written to DVD is exactly the same as the source data.
Of course you'll need an optical drive that's capable of writing to a DVD disc, too. Most computers now include a CD/DVD drive that can act as a DVD burner, but you should check to see that the drive is labelled "DVD R/RW" or similar.
DVD Burning Software - Free and Commercial
There are many retail DVD burning programs. Ahead Software's Nero 9 is arguably the best known. A slimmed-down version of Nero is often bundled with new computers, giving users a taste and a tease for advanced video editing and other features in the retail version. Roxio Easy Creator is another DVD burning program often bundled with new computers. It, too, is given away free in limited form.
Windows 7 and Vista (Home Premium and higher editions) include Microsoft's DVD Maker software. You can access DVD Maker through the All Programs option on the Start menu or use the Publish option in Windows Movie Maker HD, the movie authoring and editing application. Some users have reported difficulties with Windows DVD Maker when the size of the batch files to be copied is close to the capacity of the DVD disc.
Most Mac OS X users have DVD burning software built into their machines. It's callled iDVD and it's found in the iLife application suite installed by default with the operating system. You can also burn to DVD disk music using iTunes or photos using iPhoto; these are also found in the iLife suite.
If you use Ubuntu or some other Linux flavor that runs the Gnome desktop, the Brasero and Nautilus CD/DVD burning applications will do the job.
Third-party free DVD burning software is abundant. A key factor is the ability to burn not only DVD discs but the Blu-Ray format, which is rapidly gaining acceptance. Blu-Ray has even greater capacity than DVD and is very useful for burning high-definition video files that may take up gigabytes of storage space.
AVS Disc Creator is one of the first free, Blu-Ray capable DVD burning programs. It supports CD-R/RW, DVD+/-RW, DVD+/-R, Double/Dual Layer DVD, and BD-R and BD-RE, the latest in Blu-ray technology.
Ashampoo Burning Studio does everything from CDs to Blu-Ray, costs nothing, and comes without adware or toolbars. It is especially good at backups and restoring files.
What DVD burning software do you prefer? Post your comment or question below...
This article was posted by Bob Rankin on 2 Dec 2009
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Article information: AskBobRankin -- Free DVD Burning Software (Posted: 2 Dec 2009)
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Most recent comments on "Free DVD Burning Software"
(See all 24 comments for this article.)Posted by:
Abi Calcano
02 Dec 2009
Hi Bob I have Nero 9 but I burn movies on a dvd and can watch them nicely on my pc but not on my home dvd player . any ideas why?
EDITOR'S NOTE: Usually this happens when the file is not "finalized" after burning. See if Nero has an option to do that.
Posted by:
Umar Hamidi
02 Dec 2009
I use Real Player (current version SP)to do the job and like it very much as it can convert different formats and burn a disc that can be played on Home DVD Players. However it is not entirely free. For a one time fee of of $14.99 you can have SuperPass for life and use it for ever for all your burning needs. The updates area lways free. So you don't have to spend more for newer as newer technologies become available. It also saves on any format conversion software as you don't have to buy any.
I highly recommend this.
Posted by:
Des
02 Dec 2009
IMGBURN is an excellent free burning tool. It is simple and will burn .iso formats, C.D's, DVD's etc..
It checks the burn for errors by opening the tray and then closing it to do so, emulating booting the disk.
Posted by:
Doral Hemm
03 Dec 2009
AVS Disk Creator doesn't actually seem to be free. I downloaded it and couldn't find any way to even try it for free. I tried Ashampoo and it worked great to create a music CD on my PC running XT.
EDITOR'S NOTE: I updated the link for Disk Creator. It's a trial version, but you can create up to 5 discs for free.
Posted by:
Chris Martin
03 Dec 2009
Ashampoo Burning Studio 9 has never caused my XP to reboot. However, my complaint is the built-in movie editor only works when my DVD burner is plugged in. I've heard good things about DVD Flick, which is free.
Posted by:
Christian
03 Dec 2009
I've used DeepBurner for DVD data discs, just for backups and so on. The free version, after thirty days, is still useable, it just removes some of the more advanced features.
http://www.deepburner.com/
Posted by:
Hank Elrod
04 Dec 2009
I'm not so sure the CD format is really on its way out because of the DVD. Let's say, you want to burn data that's only a few megabytes (or anything under 700 megs)... would you really want to reach for a blank DVD rather than the less expensive (and still on most systems easier to read) CD medium? A more compact/practical storage medium may be on the near horizon that will make the CD format obsolete, but this new storage medium will make the DVD obsolete as well. The way I see it - if the CD becomes obsolete, then its cousin, the DVD, is soon to follow.
Posted by:
Ryan James
04 Dec 2009
I have used Ashampoo since version 5 and now have stopped at version 8. I love the program's simplicity and it has never failed me. I had burned discs on the past with Nero and Roxio and others were not able to read them on their computer.
Posted by:
Connor
04 Dec 2009
DVD Shrink - lol
Posted by:
Bruce
04 Dec 2009
How can I find out what type of DVD my drive will burn. I can not find any documentation about the maker of the drive I have. It currently rejects a new DVD+R 16x4.7GB 120min The message I get says I need to insert a blank disc
Posted by:
Charles
05 Dec 2009
K3B works well for data DVD files and comes with the KDE destop on linux systems. The Video DVD creation software that Comes with KDE makes the Video files and calls K3B to do the deed.
Posted by:
Brian D
07 Dec 2009
I've used InfraRecorder for a few years now. Simple, very reliable and all the features I need without a lot of bloat and features I don't.
Posted by:
souprman
08 Dec 2009
I've been burning DVDs for the past 9 years with most of the programs mentioned above but I find as keepers VideoReDo ($75) and Nero Express 6 (its down and dirty and free). VideoRdDo is great for putting multiple movies on one disk, even editing their format (4x3,16x9,720x480 & HD) I got VideoReDo originally to move DVR movies to DVD but I found that when it burns a movie to disk it also burns it to the hard drive in the same video format.
VideoReDo removes commercials automatically.
Posted by:
Jim
22 Dec 2009
I've been using CDBurnerXP for several years. Burns all types of CDs & DVDs that I know of - data, audio, video, iso and even Blu-Ray if you have the hardware. I've run it from 2K, XP, Vista and Win7. Best of all, it's free! It's available at:
http://www.cdburnerxp.se/
The author's website is nicely done, and contains an amazing amount of useful information.
Posted by:
hum
14 Jan 2010
you said the software was free - I downloaded the AVS and it only allows 5 burns then you have to pay ..... dud...... are there any good "actually free" ones out there ... anyone know
EDITOR'S NOTE: Did you try the other one (aShampoo) that I recommended?
Posted by:
mg
25 Jul 2010
I like your article. I use my free dvd burning software all the time. article.http://www.ehow.com/how_6051836_choose-dvd-burning-software.html
Posted by:
Shirley
13 Sep 2010
I'm using Any DVD Cloner for Mac Platinum. It works fine for me. Efficient.
Posted by:
DVD
18 Feb 2011
Also try the Easy DVD Burning software it has complete tool which allows you to copy DVD movies to IPod, PSP, iPhone, etc.
Posted by:
Csabaxb
16 Apr 2012
IMGBURN it's verry good, use it from many years.
Posted by:
cheapest DVD-Cloner for Mac
30 Nov 2013
[url=http://www.softassembly.com/DVD-Cloner-for-Mac.html]cheap DVD-Cloner for Mac[/url]. the definitive DVD copy software for the Mac operating system.