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Best CD writing software ?


davd_indigo

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I downloaded the Cyberlink Power2Go trial version. I tried it out last night and it was really simple to use. I loved that. I was all set to buy it and then realized that the $70 seems to be an annual subscription fee. It seems a bit pricey at $70 annually.

 

 

Are there other excellent products that are one time purchases ? I was looking mainly just to be able to copy existing CD's for use in my car, and also to burn practice/rehearsal recordings to CD's for listening in the car.

 

 

 

 

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What kind of CD burning are you doing that you need a 'best' for? I'm a long time Sound Forge user, and I've been using their CD Architect for years, which is now integrated with the editing program. I can't think of anything fancier to do than adjust the spacing between tracks, which it does easily. I do remember having to fuss with it for a while before I got the hang of attaching text that would display track names on players that would display it. None of my CD players at home are smart enough to display the text, though. I have to go out and try it in my car's player.

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The Cyberlink suite came with a Blu-Ray burner I bought. I use it for creating data CDs and it works fine.

 

The one thing you want to check is whether the PQ codes you place for song beginnings hit EXACTLY where you want them on the finished CD. My understanding (I haven't tested for myself, so this could be an urban legend) is that the Windows CD burning utility isn't all that accurate, so burners based on it instead of a custom burning utility have the same issue.

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LG? I just got an LG oem and am having trouble burning blu rays with Phillips med. Tried Power2go (Cyberlink) Ashampoo and Imgburn. Same thing more or less. Imgburn seems to work but the discs crap out after around 10GB. There are issues I can't address yet - the source drive is a spinner on USB3 for instance and might be bogging down on long transfers. If that's it I'm stuck till I get a bigger C: drive. Trying Verbatim media next. Needless to say I hope it's not the burner.

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Do you need the paid version just to burn personal music?

 

Mostly personal recordings made with my handheld recorder. I also prefer to make copies of any commercial CD's for listening in my car - I suppose my next car will have Bluetooth.

 

I did a quick search and I gather PQ codes are basically markers for the beginning and ending of songs, maybe with some sort of silent spacing between - or maybe I'm incorrect. I did take a personal CD burned with the Cyberlink and made a copy of it, again with Cyberlink. This copy played OK in my CD player.

 

I looked at Sony CD Architect. It seems to have a lot of functionality, but I just want something quick and easy. The only thing I could see that I'd want was the text titling capability. But that would cost about $40 more than the Cyberlink for that one extra function.

 

I thank you (plural) for weighing in on this. I think I will buy the CL Power2Go. I like its simplicity.

 

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I've tried the free stuff and they all will burn a music CD. I've burned well over a hundred with Ashampoo Burning Studio (simple, quick, and free) and all play on any of my drives including the car. The biggest concern seems to be media brand but even that's a non issue once you find a consistent brand.

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I just downloaded a trial version of Ashampoo Burning Studio. As a test I tried to copy a CD. I dragged and dropped the tracks into Ashampoo's screen. It copied the dragged tracks. Then it asked me to insert a blank CD-R. After inserting the CD-R, Ashampoo popped up with a message that there was a problem with my blank CD, along with a list of maybe 8 or 10 possible problems.

 

I closed Ashampoo and opened up Power2Go and tried copying a disc , using the same blank CD. Power2Go copied it with no issues. This was a commercial CD I was copying. I try not to carry the original commercial CD's in my car, making copies and leaving the originals on my CD shelves.

 

This was a deal breaker. I want my time to be available for playing, studying, cultivating in general - music. Not to have to get bogged down on why the software won't work.

 

Still, thanks for your input.

 

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I just downloaded a trial version of Ashampoo Burning Studio. As a test I tried to copy a CD. I dragged and dropped the tracks into Ashampoo's screen. It copied the dragged tracks. Then it asked me to insert a blank CD-R. After inserting the CD-R, Ashampoo popped up with a message that there was a problem with my blank CD, along with a list of maybe 8 or 10 possible problems.

 

I closed Ashampoo and opened up Power2Go and tried copying a disc , using the same blank CD. Power2Go copied it with no issues. This was a commercial CD I was copying. I try not to carry the original commercial CD's in my car, making copies and leaving the originals on my CD shelves.

 

This was a deal breaker. I want my time to be available for playing, studying, cultivating in general - music. Not to have to get bogged down on why the software won't work.

 

Still, thanks for your input.

 

No problem. Couple things. The top freebies in the disc burning category are all top notch. You do need to watch the installations though. Always disconnect from the internet and select custom install. From there you can deselect all the toolbars and offers. Once installed always check the options/settings/preferences. A particularly tricky one is "install updates automatically". Allowing this can load you up with all the adware you deselected.

Get the portable versions if they are provided. These have no installer and only require unzipping to a folder.

I try to check software sites like MajorGeeks. They have pertinent info on the adware content and if and what steps should be taken during installation.

 

On CD burning, I always rip a CD to WAV and burn those files as a music disc. No copy disc issues that way.

 

I'm using Power2go for my new bluray burner and It works quite well for archiving. The disc fails I initially experienced went away as soon as I burned a Verbatim disc instead of the cheaper Phillips. The Verbatim was also successful at twice as fast as the Phillips failing. Kinda happy with that. Now that I know it's the media I'll go back to Ashampoo and see how it does bluray.

While I'm fresh on this stuff, ImgBurn is the most in depth freebie. Oodles of settings for experts and the latest version is clean period. I'd be using it but it won't do multi session burns. I think it's because the author would have to rewrite the whole thing to accommodate just that feature. Anyway THAT'S a dealbreaker for me.

 

One more piece you may want to try before you shell out for Cyberlink is CDburner XP. This one is adware driven but you can get around it by selecting [other download options] or a button to that effect.

 

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One more thing I just came across. Burnaware. I tried this with Ashampoo several years ago and ended up sticking with Ashampoo. I forget why. Anyway since you're so bent on paying for apps, Burnaware has premium and pro versions for 20 bucks and 40 bucks respectively. Either will copy disc to disc besides just ripping them.

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1001Gear, you triggered a memory. When I bought a Sony PCM-D50 (now discontinued) from a friend, it had Sony Soundforge Lite included. This software allowed me to easily write CD's. Then something happened - maybe it was a Windows update, I can't recall now. Soundforge Lite now longer worked for writing CD's. But I searched for and found some free software that would burn CD's. Then (again I can't recall the details since it's been several years) the free software stopped working. I did some searching and read something about this software needing a "Codec". I searched for and found the Codec, or at least it was supposed to be. I downloaded the codec and installed it. It fried my effing computer. The computer was about 6 years old at that point and I didn't want to pay someone more than the value of the computer to have it fixed. I learned a lesson about wading in alligator infested waters (I live in Florida after all).

 

So, in a sense, what you said about me being "so bent" on paying for software is true. I'd like software that has a nice user interface and works simply. I'd also like software that someone is maintaining. And without sneaky hidden junk added on.

 

I was thinking. The "paid" software I have, as far as I was able to recall, is music related. I have Mixcraft, Soundforge Audio Studio (a lite version - burning a CD with setting up markers between each song is its on special kind of HELL) , "Train Your Ears" (a software for practicing EQing skills).

 

One other thought that occurred to me is that the handheld recorder (now a Sony PCM-D100) paired with burning software is kind of like the Polaroid camera circa 1960. Not exact cutting edge in today's tech world. But it still has a niche for me.

 

Again, thanks for the input.

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I been using Power 2 go for about 10 years now. It came with my HP computer and its Vista setup. I have many other burners but the Power 2 does do some things that are very simple, especially when it comes to burning DVD's. It also links up with Lightscribe program so flipping the CD's over and burning labels is a no brainer. When you close the burner program it asks you if you want to use Lightscribe and pulls the song information over to the label burner program. Then you simply select the formats and pictures you want for the label.

 

Lightscribe is slow as hell but it beats sticky labels which can eventually bubble up and make the cd's unplayable.

 

I used to use Nero allot too. It was always good for music CD's but the older version I had didn't burn DVD's very well. The newer version does I believe and $29 isn't too bad. If you're only making music CD's and don't need all the frills then any of the popular CD burners will work.

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Kind Sirs and Wonks, in my poking around, I notice that Power2Go has added Ogg file format. A Wikipedia search seems to suggest that FlAC is a format within the category of Ogg. I noticed that Sony CD Architect has FLAC. I'm just trying to think a bit proactively as far as possibly doing higher resolution in the future.

 

Of course, this all is a little Odd Oggish to me (anyone here remember some toy called "Odd Ogg" ?).

 

But about Ogg ? Anyone ? I have a very superficial understanding of formats.

 

Thanks.

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OGG FLAC and APE as far as I recall offhand are lossless compression formats. I don't understand how they work but you get back everything you started with. APE I believe allows graded stages and all lossless. That is you can super shrink audio files and still retain full fidelity when expanded. I could be mistaken.

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FLAC seems to be the format favored by the "high resolution" folks. It's free. Might as well use it. Ogg FLAC is FLAC mapped to the Ogg transport layer, so in theory, it should be non-lossy. I'm not quite sure what the point is, other than perhaps some systems will accept Ogg and not FLAC. This is more than you ever dreamed you wanted to know about it:

 

https://xiph.org/flac/ogg_mapping.html

 

 

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