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.

Qflix, hmmm, sounds familiar but you just can't place it? That is most likely because it is a new technology (to be introduced tomorrow at CES) that will allow digital movie downloaders to burn DVD's of their downloaded movies and play them on their home DVD player. Qflix is a way for studios to appease the angry mobs who are screaming at them to give their viewers some way to get these DVDs off their computer. It will be restricted of course (so the DRM isn't going away) to burning a limited number of times or limiting the number of times the DVD will play. Thanks for the nod, but no smoking gun DVD-burning drive yet. Sonic Solutions (of Roxio fame) is the company behind the Qflix technology, and the rumors floating around say that they are planning to give customers the option of burning a movie at a kiosk (most likely in a Walgreens store near you). Not a bad idea, only if they still plan on offering a downloadable version you could burn at home in addition to the kiosks. Can you say "the death of Blockbuster?" This idea might actually have legs if they don't limit the times it can play (which would enrage consumers), but limiting the number of times you can burn it is fine by me. I don't need four copies of anything, really. It isn't perfect, and it isn't ideal, but it may work as enough of a compromise between consumers and the tight-fisted studios. Oh yeah, did I mention the movie studios have approved its use? That is another reason this one might actually make it on the small screen.

via slashdot

Yahoo! Music Engine is now called Yahoo! Music Jukebox (haven't I heard that name before?). This name change coincides with the roll out of new features and a premium "Plus" version.

According to the press release, Yahoo! Music Jukebox will be enhanced with:

• New Audio Equalizer: A new 5-band equalizer allows users to adjust the sound of their favorite music in a convenient fashion.
• Usability Enhancements: An overall new look of Yahoo! MusicJukebox has made key functions more accessible through consistent right click and tick menus. Users can quickly play a selection of an artist's top tracks with just one click. The improved application makes moving the Yahoo! Music catalog - to a users' music collection - to Messenger Music and back again for a seamless experience.

burnatonce is a Windows front-end for the open source cdrdao and mkisofs CD burning tools. In other words, it's a free, fast, versatile, and minimal way to burn CDs. Though its interface may not be as polished as, say, Nero's, burnatonce has most of the features you're used to, like support for bootable and multi-session discs, audio CD burning from MP3, Ogg, and FLAC files, ISO, TOC, and CUE image support, drag-and-drop, and more. Not bad for a 3.8MB free download.

Windows XP has reasonably good, if basic, CD burning support, but one thing it conspicuously cannot do is burn ISO images. ISO Recorder fixes that. It's an extension for Windows that adds native ISO image burning support. If you're running SP2 it'll also let you create ISO images and, in Vista it adds DVD ISO burning. The author also has a tool called CreateCD that'll let you burn CDs from the command line. Both are free.