Better Burning

Melissa J. Perenson

Melissa Perenson is a PC World associate editor who regularly covers CD-RW topics.

So you've purchased a CD-Rewritable drive--maybe one of those reviewed in our roundup? What you can do with your drive depends on the software that runs it.

Often, the software bundled with the drive provides only basic functions such as burning data to a CD-R or performing packet writing. And that bundled software may be a somewhat older or stripped-down version; for example, many drives this summer were shipping with Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4.0, the predecessor of Easy CD Creator 5. Drive vendors may also bundle their own, branded programs; Hewlett-Packard, for instance, supplies its basic HP MyCD software with its drives.

Whether you're a neophyte who values simplicity or a power user who wants more features and more control, changing your software can help you to get the most out of your new or existing CD-RW drive.

Is such an upgrade worthwhile? The answer is a conditional yes.

If you simply want to write computer data onto a CD-R or CD-RW disc, the package bundled with your drive may be sufficient. On the other hand, if you want to do more than that (such as making audio CDs from digital audio files) or if you find the bundled software difficult to use, the programs we review here can supply the features you need and make the process of burning discs easier.

With upgraded software, a CD-RW drive can do so much more than straightforward data backup. For example: Easy CD Creator 4.0 Standard (bundled with many drives) can't edit audio tracks or create Video CDs, but the 5 Platinum version can do all that and more. And whereas NTI's CD-Maker 2000 (bundled with 16X/10X/40X Pacific Digital drives) won't allow you to make MP3s from CD audio or record live audio, the same company's CD-Maker Professional Edition will.

But a CD is a CD is a CD...right? Not exactly. You can use a variety of CD formats and pick from a plethora of options as to how to burn them. A multisession CD, for example, lets you add data to a disc after the first burn.

Other formats include Mixed-Mode CD (which stores audio first and data second, letting you play the disc on a CD player and read the data on a CD-ROM drive); the aforementioned Video CD format, which enables you to store up to 1 hour of MPEG-1 compressed video on a standard CD; Macintosh-compatible HFS CD; and hybrid CDs (which can be read on both PCs and Macs). Many of the basic packages that come with CD-RW drives omit some or all of these specialized formats.

Burning Tales

For this review, we tested the speed of writing data to a CD-R disc using each of the programs, but we found the programs' speed differences to be minimal. So we judged the programs on features and ease of use. We did not test the speed of writing to a CD-RW disc.

Although all of the programs we reviewed perform most of the same tasks, each has a different range of features. Stomp's $50 Click'N Burn 2.0 is the least expensive product, while the priciest is Roxio's $80 Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum (Roxio is an Adaptec spin-off company). Rounding out the field are Oak Technology's $65 SimpliCD, Ahead's $69 Nero Burning ROM 5.5, and NTI's $70 CD-Maker Professional Edition.

Most of today's CD-RW drives conform to the industry-standard Multimedia Command set. MMC determines how the software controls the drive, so any CD-RW mastering program should work with almost any drive. However, the software will take advantage of a drive's full capabilities only if it supports that drive; with such support, the software can understand how to use specific features, such as buffer underrun compensation technology (discussed in "CD-RW ASAP"). It's a good idea to visit a software vendor's Web site and see if your drive is supported before you buy a package.

In our tests, we found that the best overall package was Oak Technology's SimpliCD 1.0--it's the winner of our Best Buy award. Close behind SimpliCD is Stomp's Click'N Burn 2.0, a powerful program with an easy-to-follow interface, although some of its features (such as burning a CD from a hard-disk image) are clumsy to use. The streamlined interface of NTI's CD-Maker Professional Edition helps that program do a better job of burning from an image, but it doesn't do a good job of creating audio CDs, as you can't shift tracks around once you add them to the burn queue. Power users who want complete control over the burning process may prefer Ahead's Nero Burning ROM 5.5. Roxio's Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum offers the largest number of features, but it is the most expensive package we reviewed.

Simpli the Best

SimpliCD isn't the most powerful or the most full-featured product in our roundup, but it balances form and function very well. And at $65 ($50 for the downloadable version), it's a reasonably priced upgrade.

Reviews

Ahead Nero Burning ROM 5.5

What's Hot: The strangely named Nero Burning ROM 5.5 offers a vast number of options, all of which the well-written help file covers. For example, the program enables you to write to hybrid CDs and to Macintosh-compatible HFS CDs, and it has an integrated MPEG-1 encoder for creating Video CDs. Other features include Nero Imagedrive, which creates a virtual CD-ROM drive that lets you view the contents of an image file without having to burn the image to disc.

What's Not: The wizard that takes you through the burning process points you in the right direction but still leaves you mostly on your own in a sea of bewildering options. Between the complex interface and the project wizard, you frequently end up clicking through numerous screens to do tasks that other programs let you do in one or two screens.

What Else: Nero Burning ROM 5.5 comes with an MP3 encoder, but it will encode only 30 files in total. To do more, you have to buy the full version of the encoder, which costs $15 extra.

Upshot: Users who want flexibility and don't mind a challenging learning curve will get the most out of this program.

NTI CD-Maker Professional Edition

What's Hot: Every task in CD-Maker Professional Edition uses the same simple, two-step interface, which keeps things easy. Drop-down menus for the source and destination drives make this software the least complicated means of copying a CD. The program also allows you to save an image of a CD to your hard disk and then burn that image to another CD.

What's Not: You can't simply click on audio track names or file names and edit them directly while they're queued for recording; instead, you have to right-click on each track, select Properties, and then edit the name in that window.

What Else: The program requires you to turn off Windows' auto-insert feature, which tries to run a program from a disc when you insert it (other packages either don't require that auto-insert be turned off or automatically disable the feature). In addition, the software enables its write-verify option by default, which lengthens the time to burn a CD but tells you whether the procedure succeeded or not. To disable this default, you must hunt around under a menu. When you record from audio inputs (such as a tape player connected to the line-in socket of the sound card), the audio is recorded to the hard drive as a.wav file or directly to the CD-R.

Upshot: CD-Maker's user-friendly interface is a major plus for beginners and for those who don't want to click through multiple screens to get the job done.

Oak Technology SimpliCD 1.0

What's Hot: SimpliCD takes a different approach to creating data CDs. While the other programs make you select the data to put onto the CD from within their interfaces, SimpliCD puts a "SimpliCD ROM" folder on your desktop that you can access through Windows Explorer. When you find a file you want to copy to a CD, you either drag and drop the file into this folder or right-click on the file and select the Send To command. When you're ready to burn the disc, open the folder, click the burn button on the toolbar at the top of the screen, and follow the simple instructions.

What's Not: Although SimpliCD has enough features to satisfy most users, it doesn't give you the level of control over every aspect of the burning process that Nero Burning ROM does. The only downside to the interface is its colorful Digital Media Recorder, which is fixed in size and doesn't make viewing full audio track and title names easy.

What Else: Context-sensitive help walks you through spots you don't understand. You can access tasks--such as making a Video CD or slide show, ripping digital audio from a CD, or creating an audio CD--from the Windows system tray. When you make audio CDs with songs from multiple CD sources in guided compilation mode, the application stores the songs temporarily on your hard disk so you don't have to swap discs.

Upshot: SimpliCD's unique approach makes burning discs a more intuitive process. The program is easy enough for neophytes to learn, yet it will appeal to experienced users as well.

Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum

What's Hot: Version 5 Platinum features a sleek, revamped interface with an easy-to-navigate project selector for choosing what type of disc to burn. You'll also find plenty of audio-specific features: an MP3 encoder to convert CD audio to MP3; a normalizer that can help moderate the loudness of the tracks in a batch; a sound editor; and Spin Doctor, which the company claims will clean up the clicks, pops, and hisses you sometimes encounter when recording from vinyl or tape. The MP3 CD Project feature automatically generates a playlist, in.M3U format, for CD players that can play MP3 files. The software supports Video CD creation, but you must use a separate, included application to perform the video encoding.

What's Not: The full installation of Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum takes a whopping 220MB of hard disk space. For the program to remember your settings between sessions, you may need to download an upgrade patch. You also have to use different interfaces for different tasks; that can be confusing when you switch between tasks. To make audio CD mixes, you must swap your source CDs throughout the burning process--Easy CD Creator can't copy the audio tracks temporarily to your hard disk.

What Else: If you're seeking artist and track data for audio CDs, you need to download a patch as well, because Roxio switched from supporting Gracenote's online CD database to supporting Freedb's. Be sure to check Roxio's Web site for another patch before using the software with Windows 2000: A bug in the shipping version caused problems on some systems that users could fix only by reinstalling Windows 2000.

Upshot: Home users who plan to record CDs with tracks extracted from alternate sources (such as vinyl) will get the best value out of Easy CD Creator.

Stomp Click'N Burn Pro 2.0

What's Hot: Click'N Burn 2.0's interface is a good compromise between simplicity and power. The starter wizard lets you easily pick the type of disc you want, with options for audio CD, data CD, and CD copying. A sound editor is included.

What's Not: The option for converting a disc into an image file is hidden in right-click menus. The software doesn't include an MPEG-1 encoder for Video CDs.

What Else: The menu and right-click options are context sensitive, so you get only the choices appropriate to the particular screen you're viewing. The $50 Click'N Burn Pro 2.0 supports writing to as many as four drives simultaneously--a boon for people who need to produce lots of CDs for distribution. Stomp also produces a $20 cut-down version called Click'N Burn Plus; it lacks some capabilities, such as creating Video CDs and recording live audio to CD.

Upshot: A strong runner-up, Click'N Burn Pro 2.0 is a good fit not just for consumers but also for business users who have multiple CD-RW drives.

Burning Audio CDs: Rip It Up and Mix It Up

One popular application of CD-RW drives is to create custom music-mix CDs by ripping (that is, reading the digital data off individual tracks) from audio CDs and burning the tracks onto a CD-R disc. All the applications we reviewed can handle this job (as can some that come bundled with the drives), but if this is all you want to do, you can get by with one of several cheaper options.

MusicMatch Jukebox Plus 6.1 costs $20 and can rip audio files and create mix CDs. It also has a sound equalizer, a playlist editor, and a printing utility for making CD labels and jewel-case covers.

RealJukebox 2 Plus packs a lot for $30. It can burn audio CDs too, though you must download a free plug-in to handle this. The software allows you to fade one song into another; and like MusicMatch Jukebox, it offers CD-label and jewel-case-cover printing. Microsoft's Windows Media Player 7 is free and supports CD burning, but it isn't as versatile as the other two packages.

The $17 shareware program MP3 CD Burner lets you trim silences or implement fades between songs, and it can create playlists in.M3U and.PLS formats for CD players that can play MP3 files from a CD-R disc. MP3 CD Burner's biggest drawback: The software won't print CD labels or jewel-case covers.

Melissa Perenson is a PC World associate editor who regularly covers CD-RW topics.

Software Features: CD-RW Mastering Packages Compared (chart)

Program	Street price (7/6/01)	Wizard to create data or music CD	Disc-at-once/ track-at-once CD copy	Audio encoder (MP3/WMA)	Sound editor	Creates audio CD from MP3s	Creates Video CDs	Supports bootable CDs/ hybrid CDs	Packet- writing software	CD database source	Comments                                                                                          
Ahead Nero Burning ROM 5.5 (http://pcworld.pricegrabber.com/search_prodsummary.php?masterid=417776&search=NERO&ut=d1016cca777894a4)	$69	Yes	Yes/Yes	No1/No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes/Yes	INCD	Freedb	Plenty of features to control every aspect of the burning process, but it has a poor interface, and a full-version MP3 encoder costs extra.
NTI CD-Maker Professional Edition (http://pcworld.pricegrabber.com/search_prodsummary.php?masterid=363222&search=CD%20maker&ut=d1016cca777894a4)	$70	Yes	Yes/Yes	Yes/No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes/No	FileCD	Freedb	Can record live audio direct to CD, and includes filters for enhancing audio from vinyl or tape. No support for hybrid CDs.
Best Buy Oak Technology SimpliCD 1.0 (http://www.oaktech.com/products/recording_software/index.html)	$652	Yes	Yes/Yes	Yes/Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes/Yes	SimpliCD ReWrite	Gracenote	Very easy to use and has a straightforward interface. Integration into Windows makes creating data CDs a breeze.
Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum (http://pcworld.pricegrabber.com/search_prodsummary.php?masterid=402056&search=roxio&ut=d1016cca777894a4)	$80	Yes	Yes/Yes	Yes/Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes/Yes	DirectCD 5	Freedb	SpinDoctor component enhances sound recorded from vinyl LPs or tape, but various components have different interfaces.
Stomp Click'N Burn Pro 2.0 (http://pcworld.pricegrabber.com/search_prodsummary.php?masterid=422513&search=click&ut=d1016cca777894a4)	$50	Yes	Yes/Yes	No/No	Yes	Yes	No	No/No	Veritas DLA	None	Relatively easy to use, but no Video CD encoder or CD track information. Can burn to up to four drives simultaneously.
Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4.0 Standard	Bundled	Yes	Yes/Yes	No/No	No	No	No	Yes/Yes	DirectCD 5	Freedb	Bundled with a range of drives. Many features are missing or are easier to use in other software packages.

1 Includes demo version of MP3 encoder that encodes only 30 files; full encoder costs an additional $15.2 Boxed version; downloadable version costs $50.