DVD/CD R/RW Software

[Gunbuster]

Hi all,
I'm thinking of buying a DVD writer in the near future.
What general purpose software would you reccomend?
Nero 5.5/6 is one option.
Are there any other reccomendations or apps to avoid?

[Jiff Lemon]

Depends on what you tend to burn.

For general use (backing up files etc) then I'd say nero 6.

i would suspect that "backing up" DVD's is a very fine line to walk down in terms of discussion on these forums.

[Gunbuster]

I'm afraid I don't want to 'back up' DVDs, I'm just looking for a good general purpose package. Nero is my first choice, but I was wondering about the Likes of Alcohol 120% or the random ones that get bundled. I'd rather buy an OEM drive and buy 1 good piece of software, but if some come with a decent package I'll be happy to go with it. I don't want to be a slave to Nero

[Jiff Lemon]

Alcohol 120% rox, but only for Image writing - there's no packet writing features.

I use Nero 6 for most stuff, Alcohol 120% and WinISO 5.3 for all image work.

[Gunbuster]

Sry to sound dumb, but what is packet writing?
is it like when I leave a session open to I can add to it later?

[Enverex]

Packet writing is something that stays open (such as Nero InCD) and allows you to use writiable CD's as if they are fixed drives, so when you drag a file onto the CD, it burns it, there and then, thus "Packet Writing" as it is only burning those packets at that time. So, yes, it is like keeping the disc open, and burning hundreds of tiny little tracks (sessions).

Nero is the best general burning software though, you don't want Alcohol 120 if you are not going to be doing CD and DVD copying. Alcohol also doesn't let you burn CD's by dragging files either, you can only burn images, or on-the-fly.

NS

[Gunbuster]

ahh, ok.
Thanks for the info.