There are plenty of free CD/DVD burners for Windows, and to be honest we haven't often been tempted to look beyond CDBurnerXP and InfraRecorder, which both seem to handle pretty much any tasks you can throw at them. But while reading an article about BurnOn over at Life Rocks 2.0, we noticed a link in the comments to StarBurn. And while we might check out BurnOn later, we were kind of blown away by StarBurn.

The application can handle all of your basic tasks like burning data, audio, and video discs. It supports a wide variety of formats including CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, and HD-DVD. And it has some nifty features like the ability to either rip audio CDs or compress audio already on your computer to MP3, WMA, or OGG formats.

One StarBurn feature that you don't often see bundled with disc burning utilities is a virtual drive mounting application. In other words, you can use StarBurn to create a disc image or ISO file, and then mount that file as a virtual disc so you can see how it performs without actually burning the file to a disc and sticking it in a drive. This can come in handy if you want to see check an image before burning it, or if you want to mount an image you've created or downloaded on a system that doesn't have a working optical drive.

StarBurn is free unless you want the network version, which offers network burning features and costs a whopping $495. The full functionality is included in the free version, but you can only use the network features during a 30 day free trial period.

Looking for an inexpensive (read: free) alternative to the CD/DVD burning utilities currently dominating the market? BurnAware Free looks to fill that space nicely.

BurnAware is a free utility that enables you to perform most common disc burning tasks:

• Burn data to most any type of disc, including DVD+R and DVD-R
• Create audio CD's from WAV, mp3, or WMA files
• Create disk images (.ISO's)
• Write DVD video files (e.g. VOB files) to a DVD

The interface is very clean and easy to use. BurnAware has a simple home screen where you can see the different burning options. Once an option is selected, the home screen minimizes to the taskbar (similar to Nero and Roxio's functionality) and a new window is opened, allowing you to customize whatever function you selected.

An added bonus of BurnAware is support for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats (provided that you have the appropriate drive, of course). Though BurnAware supports both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, we found it peculiar that it only advertises Blu-Ray support. A pointed jab at HD-DVD, or simply an oversight? Only time will tell...

BurnAware Free is currently in beta, with support for Windows 98/NT/2000/XP and Vista (32 and 64 bit).

There's a cat and mouse game that goes on between those who produce professional videos and those who want to watch those videos on their own terms. Every time the folks behind DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, or HD-DVDs serve up a new DRM scheme, hackers go to work trying to figure out how to circumvent that encryption.

You can look at this as a noble or malicious act: either the hackers want to make sure you can watch the movie on any machine you choose, or they want to make sure you can upload the videos to file sharing sites. The reality is probably somewhere in the middle.

Earlier this year SlySoft released a commercial application for ripping HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. The only problem is that disc manufacturers could keep offering up new encryption keys that would make the software obsolete.

Now SlySoft has released an updated version of AnyDVD that it says it "future-proof," because it includes an artificial intelligence agent that figures out how to strip DRM from movies even if those movies are encrypted using a previously unknown key.

Update: It looks like the "AI Scanner" only works with DVDs, not HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. Considering it's been pretty easy to rip DVDs for some time now, that makes this "future-proof" guarantee a bit less exciting.

[via Extreme Tech]

Despite its name, CDBurnerXP is not just a CD burning application for Windows XP. It's actually one of the most full featured free CD and DVD burning utilities you're likely to find for Windows 2000/XP/Vista.

CDBurnerXP 4 was recently released, and it has some impressive new features:

• Support for burning Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, and Double layer DVDs
• Support for FLAC audio files
• Disc to Disc copy for audio and data
  
• Save discs and compilations as ISO files
• Support for WPL playlists

While Windows XP and Vista include some basic CD and DVD authoring features, CDBurnerXP is about as full-featured as many commercial applications out there. And it's free. The program is donateware, so if you want to download the latest beta versions you'll need to make a contribution.

[via freeware genius]

Nero 8 is due out next week, although if you look around, you might be able to find a download link today. The latest version of Nero's popular CD/DVD burning suite includes support for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD videos, uploading videos to websites including YouTube, and MySpace, and a new disc recovery tool that lets you salvage data from corrupted CDs and DVDs.

Probably the most striking thing about Nero 8 is how clean and simple the user interface is when compared with Nero 7. We caught up with Nero technical director Craig Campbell at ShowStoppers in New York, and he told us that the company has put a lot of work into improving the interface. But there are also some improvements under the hood. Campbell says Nero 8 loads faster, and is optimized for dual-core and quad-core processors.

A full version of Nero 8 will set you back $100 if you buy it in a box, $80 if you download it from Nero's website, or $60 if you're upgrading from Nero 7.

Nero has announced that it will release the next version of its popular CD/DVD burning suite on October 1.

Nero 8 will include a new interface for burning and ripping audio and video discs. The software is optimized for Windows Vista, and includes support for creating Blu-Ray and HD-DVD video discs.

Other updates include:

• Upload videos to Youtube, MySpace, and My Nero with one click
• Nero RescueAgent lets you restore deleted files and recover data from damaged discs.
• Run Nero DiscCopy gadget from the Windows Vista sidebar to copy discs with one click

Nero 8 will cost $100 if you buy the retail box. Or you can save $20 by downloading it from Nero's website.

Making backup copies of movies you purchase on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs may have just gotten a little easier. Just a few months after members at the Doom9 forums uncovered a way to extract individual volume keys that allow you to decrypt the AACS copy protection for individual movies, it looks like they've found the holy grail: a processing key used on every disc.

In other words, ripping a high definition disc just became almost as easy as ripping a DVD. In the short term, you can probably expect to see an explosion in high definition films torrents available online. In the long run, we can only hope someone will wrap this hack into a nice little GUI and create an easy high-definition disc backup utility that anyone can use.

[via EngadgetHD]

Roxio Easy Media Creator 9 released! The new version includes support to burn up to 50GB onto a disc, even on Blu-Ray discs. Roxio Easy Media Creator 9 now supports media for iPod, PSP, cell phones, and Windows Media compatible devices. Not clear whether this means you can save media to the correct format, or if Roxio includes a way to transfer the media as well. Secure 128-bit encryption, burning and creating an ISO at the same time, and mounting virtual CD files are now included as well. HD video support and even 16:9 DVD creation features round out version 9.

[Via eHomeUpdate]