Storing CDs as images on a PC

I was looking at various CD and DVD burning software and I stumbled upon a program called Alcohol 120%.

I did some Googling and it seems it’s highly recommended by a lot of reviewers. I’m trying to understand what’s so special about this software that it’s worth paying $45 for when there’s a lot of free software out there that will burn CDs and DVDs.

What’s so special about a CD being an “image” on your PC rather than just ripped using free software? Does an image use up less disc space or have some other benefits?

Run them at 200x the speed?

How is that different than just burning a CD of a CD you ripped to your PC?

Because it allows you to mount CD images as virtual drives. Indeed, many copy-protection schemes check for this sort of behaviour to prevent piracy.

Seems like this program is aimed at software CDs and DVDs (like games), not music or video discs. it allows you to use your “CD” without actually inserting the CD into the drive.

As Quartz says, software like this allows you to copy your CD to your drive as a disc image. This will appear on your computer as a single ISO file. You then “mount” the image on a virtual disc drive, and it appears in My Computer just like any other disc drive. When i want to mount disc images, i use Daemon Tools, a free piece of software that does the trick.

Thing is, for music CDs it’s sort of pointless to store disc images on your computer. You’re better off just ripping the discs and storing the music files, either in lossless format (CDA or FLAC), or a lossy format like MP3 or OGG. There’s really no advantage to storing music as disc images, unless you have some music CDs that are also CD ROMS, with extra features that you’d like to be able to use on your computer.

Which leads us to beowulff’s point: for the most part, people use disc images for software and games, because it allows you to run the software without inserting the physical disc. And because your computer is reading the mounted image straight off the hard drive, and not off the optical drive, it can read it much more quickly than it can a physical CD/DVD. That’s what they means by the 200x thing.

To tell the truth, i can’t remember the last time i mounted a disc image. I think it might have been when i downloaded an image of Ubuntu to install on my computer. I’m not a gamer, so i have no need to make images for that reason. To tell the truth, most of the disc images i’ve seen were pirated software and DVDs. There’s plenty of legitimate uses for disc images, but it seems to be another technology where a large proportion of the actual usage is done by file-sharers.

Thanks, guys. So, to hi-jack my own thread, what do you think the best software is out there for burning CDs and DVDs? I don’t mind if it’s free or not. My awesome Googling skills lead me to believe CDBurnerXP is a top contender.

I have a relatively old version of Nero (v. 6.6) on my computer, and it does the job just fine. I believe Nero is up to version 9 now, but i see no need to upgrade. I think my version came with my DVD burner. Did you not receive Nero or Sonic or some similar burning software with your computer or burner?

If you want a free solution, i’ve heard good reports of the one you mention, CDBurnerXP, and also of BurnAtOnce, although i’ve never used either myself.

I’ve only used InfraRecorder’s PortableApps version, but it works great.

Edit: I also use Nero, and second mhendo’s opinion. I also also have used K3B and … something else … on Linux with no complaints.

IMGBurn might also be worth a try.

I have a disc that came with my burner that has Nero 8 Express on it. I read that Nero is ‘bloatware’ and other negative things. I want what the PC geek would use. :smiley:

I second the ImgBurn recommendation, it’s what I use. Very clean.

I used to use Nero but it is bloatware. I used to really like Nero’s AAC encoder but it’s just a bit too much work getting clean AAC files set up and tagged in iTunes (it can be done w/o too much difficulty, but it’s a lot more work than simply ripping with iTunes)

Fair enough, but i have lots of geeky stuff on my computer (and i also dual-boot with Linux), and i’ve found Nero to be fine.

The installation takes up 70Mb of hard-drive space, which is absolutely nothing on today’s hard drives. It doesn’t run in the background when i don’t want it, and when it is running it doesn’t use up much in the way of CPU or memory. I’ve really had no trouble at all.

There’s one thing you should do if you’re going to install Nero (or just about any software, IMO): choose Custom Install instead of Typical Install. With Custom, you can deselect the unnecessary shit that often comes with these sorts of programs. I can’t remember what comes with Nero, but there’s probably some stuff you don’t need. Just leave it out when you install the program.

cdrecord or growisofs from the Linux command line :wink:

A. Men.

You really shouldnt have to spend money on nero for something as simple as burning cds or taking images. I use CDBurnerXP. Its free, works fine, and has a simple to use GUI.

Agreed—it’s pretty darned rare that one needs to twiddle with disc images on a PC.

…on Mac OS X, however, they are quite popular as the standard software delivery mechanism. When you download any software, free or purchased, it usually comes in the form of a variable-size disk image, which is mounted seamlessly by OS X.

I like it, and wouldn’t mind if Windows had this same built-in functionality. Not a huge thing, but it’s nice.

Try StarBurn Free edition. The download link will actually download the new release version 12. Uncheck install SkyWeb unless you want that search tool on your browser.

I believe my copy of Nero came free with the burner. Or something. I certainly did not pay for it.

I am still using Nero V.6.00.11 because after I upgraded to a newer version I had some trouble (I think it would not overburn) so I just went back to 6. It works fine and does all I want.

I use CDBurnerXP for burning; small, free, easy, and it works.

For mounting images I use the free version of MagicDisc; some software won’t work if Alcohol 120% or Daemon Tools is running on the computer.

Virtual CloneDrive is good as a free alternative for mounting images. (especially useful for playing PSX games on an emulator, and often sorts out audio/graphical issues that the DVD drive causes).

Nero is my personal favourite for burning, but like others it came free with my motherboard or DVD drive I think. CDBurnerXp would be my free burner of choice though.

Windows Media Player works just fine for me.