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The ability to burn a CD / DVD has gone mainstream, with the disc writing capability now a standard feature on even the most basic setup. However the process / experience of burning a disc differs largely among users as there are a host of paid and free burning software available in the market. For the paid solution, nero is without doubt the leader in the market. Free solutions includes:

1. CDBurnerXP
2. Deepburner - Also available as a portable application
3. InfraRecorder

There are many alternatives beside the three mentioned above, and most recently, I stumbled upon Starburn, which can be downloaded here. As a previous user of CDBurnerXP, I was immediately a convert of Starburn and highly recommend it. Here’s why……

More Than A Burner

A you can see above, it provides the basic function such as burning Music, Data, and Video disc, all neatly categorized with full support for high definition disc such as Blu-ray and HD-DVD. It also provides added functionality such:

• Grabbing image from CD, DVD, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD as a ISO image
• Building of UDF / ISO image
• Ripping of Audio tracks from music disc
• Compress / Decompress your audio files from WAV to MP3 etc.
• Creating a Virtual Drive for mounting image files

All the functions are extremely easy to use, each with a guided wizard interface to ensure you get the task done.

Using Starport Device

You should do fine with the wizard interface to achieve what you need for the various task. I will be illustrating the use of StarPort device to add a virtual drive to your system.

Firstly click on the “StarPort” icon at the top to bring up the wizard interface

Since this is the first time we are doing this, select “Create a new virtual DVD device”. The other functions are self explanatory and you will need them in future.

You have to select the image file to mount. Basically browse to the location of your .iso extension file.

Finally you will see this new device on your “My Computer” and access it as if it was a CD / DVD drive.

To un-mount the image, open up the Starburn application, look at the bottom window and locate your virtual drive. From there, “right click” to remove the mounted image.

Conclusion

Starburn is a great application that’s totally FREE for personal use. It has all the functionality the average user will ever need, including support for high definition disc. Crucially, it allows for an integrated solution that lets you rip a disc to create a .iso image file, and subsequently mount the .iso image using StarPort device, freeing your physical disc drive for other task.

Note: My first encounter with Starburn was through this post at downloadsquad.