Most of my customers still think Nero and Roxio are the only people that make burning software. Most of you know better - there are tons of good, free burning applications for Windows. Here's a quick list of five that I enjoy using. If your favorite isn't mentioned, share it with us in the comments!

ImgBurn (pictured above)
Since most of my recording tasks involve ISO files or burning entire folders as a backup, ImgBurn has become my app of choice. It's small and easy to use, and I've yet to produce a coaster with it. It's also a great tool for creating ISO files - either from a disc or files and folders on your PC.

ImgBurn also gets bonus points for the random comments that appear in status bar.

See the rest after the jump!

SMPlayer is a frontend for the open source MPlayer media player. Like MPlayer, that means SMPlayer can handle a wide array of video formats. And the latest build brings SMPlayer one step closer to being a complete replacement for Windows Media Center with experimental support for DVD menus.

SMPlayer 0.6.7 also makes it esier to load external subtitle files, doest a better job of sorting new files added to playlists, and and allows users to configure audio and subtitle delays if necessary.

The media player is available for Windows or Linux. There's also a portable version for Windows that can be run from a USB flash drive.

[via gHacks]

Want to convert your DVD into a video file that you can play on any computer, but don't feel like fussing with complicated DVD ripping software? It doesn't get much simpler than bitRipper. All you need to do is pop a DVD into your optical disc drive, fire up bitRipper, and click the Start ripping button. That's it.

Of course, you can click the settings tab to access more advanced features. For instance, you can change the audio or video codecs or adjust the bit rate, aspect ratio, or video resolution. At the very least, I'd recommend configuring the audio. The default settings use a ridiculously low bitrate that sounds just awful.

For some reason, when I tried ripping a video using the LAME audio codec, the audio and video were out of sync, but when I tried again using the Fraunhofer codec all was right with the world.

[via MakeUseOf]

Ever have a few drinks and nod off while watching a DVD? I'm pretty sure almost all of us has been there at one time or another. If you've ever longed for that feeling you get when you groggily wake up to the DVD's menu playing over and over again, head on over to You Fell Asleep Watching a DVD.

You can choose from a selection of DVDs to "fall asleep" in front of, including:

• Pride & Prejudice
• Knocked Up
• Punch Drunk Love
• Bucket List
• Arrested Development
• Terminator 2
• Van Wilder
• Harry Potter 3
• Reservoir Dogs
• The Ben Stiller Show
• Shaun of the Dead
• Bourne Supremacy

This site has a very high WTF factor. There's really nothing more to do than select a movie and watch its menu screen on a tiny screen on a cartoon television in a static cartoon living room. If it was my site, each DVD screen would link to Amazon with an affiliate link so I could make a couple bucks off of it. But then, I'm greedy like that.

I don't do a lot of ISO creation, so when I do find myself needing to compile an image I like a nice, uncomplicated app to get the job done.

Free ISO Creator's self-explanatory interface makes the process about as easy as it can get. Browse for files and folders to add, choose where you'd like your ISO to be saved, and click convert. It's speedy, compiling my test CD in about 12 seconds.

Bootable images can be created, and CD, DVD-5, and DVD-9 are supported, and you can also specify your ISO to be created as ISO 9660 or UDF. I'd get in to more detail, but this is a simple, straightforward app, and there's nothing at all tricky about using it.

Free ISO Creator is a 1mb free download for Windows only.

RealNetworks executivies may have thought that the company was releasing a lawsuit-proof DVD ripper when it decided to add mandatory DRM to its RealDVD application launched last month. After all, while the software lets you rip DVD movies and save the video on your hard drive, it makes it extraordinarily difficult to share the media with other users, or even to watch it on a portable device or another computer you own.

The movie studios apparently saw things differently because they filed a lawsuit last week and received a temporary injuction against RealNetworks that prevents the company from selling the software. During a hearing on Tuesday, a US district court judge made that injunction indefinite. The next hearing won't be scheduled until November 17th or later, which means that RealDVD will be unavailable for at least a month.

Honestly, I'm still not sure why anyone would pay $30 for a DVD ripper when there are so many free, (and DRM-free) options available. But the case is interesting, because RealNetworks is insisiting that by leaving the CSS encryption intact it is not violating anyone's copyrights.

If this argument is upheld in court, it could be seen as both a win and a loss for supporters of DRM. On the one hand, it would help bolster the argument that DRM prevents piracy and that utilizing DRM is a valid option for studios that want to abide by the law. On the other hand, it would mean that companies like RealNetworks can create software that uses DRM to get around exactly what the movie studios wanted to use it for in the first place - to keep people from making copies of DVDs.

Either way, it would be yet another instance of companies and courts telling users how they can and can't enjoy the media they've legally purchased. But it's not at all clear how the courts will rule on this case yet.

[via NewTeeVee]

RealNetworks, makers of RealPlayer and the company that brought you the Rhapsody subscription music service are expected to announced a new product called RealDVD today. What's RealDVD? It's a DVD ripper. But unlike most DVD rippers available today, RealDVD makes a complete copy of a disc right down to the menus, alternate audio tracks, and special features. Oh yeah, and the software only lets you play that copy on a single computer thanks to some heavy-handed DRM.

There is a way around this restriction. You can transfer the file to up to 5 additional Windows PCs by purchasing up to 5 additional software licenses at $20 a pop. The first license will cost you around $30.

Of course, there are plenty of other applications that let you rip movies for free. And they don't add DRM. A few of my favorites are:

• Fair Use Wizard
• RatDVD
• Handbrake
• DVD Catalyst Free

Technically it's illegal to use the aforementioned apps to rip commercial DVDs. But if you plan to make a backup of your movie collection for viewing on your PC and don't plan to distribute those movies on the internet, odds are nobody will come banging down your door. And you don't need to pay $20 if you buy a new computer and want to move your collection from one PC to the next.

Want to watch your DVD collection on your iPod, iPhone, PSP, Smartphone, PDA, or Zune? DVD Catalyst is a simple Windows application that can rip a 2 hour movie from your DVD and apply video compression so that the file fits on your portable device's storage card and still looks halfway decent on your mobile screen.

DVD Catalyst offers one-click DVD ripping and encoding. Just launch the program, select your portable device, slide a DVD into your disc drive, and click the little green button. The program will choose the best resolution, bit rate, and other settings for you.

Up until recently, only a commercial version of DVD Catalyst was available. But now there's a free version with a limited feature set. If you want advanced features like the ability to set 2-pass conversions, split videos into multiple parts, or adjust the volume and framerates, you might want to shell out $15 to $20 for a full version. But if you're looking for a quick and easy way to cram a few dozen DVD movies on your iPod, DVD Catalyst Free might be all you need.

[via Palm InfoCenter]

There's no question that it's faster to purchase a movie from the iTunes store than your local video store -- assuming you have a speedy internet connection. But if you want to get the latest releases as son as they're out on video, you're probably better off making the trek to the video store. Or at least that's what we would have told you yesterday, when it could take weeks or months longer for movies to show up on iTunes. But now Apple has announced that many movies will be available on iTunes the same day as they are released n DVD.

Apple has reached deals with Fox, Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal, Sony, Lionsgate, Image, and First Look. That covers a lot of territory. New releases will typically set you back $14.99. The press release doesn't make it clear whether this applies to the $2.99 movie rentals, so if you want to rent a video for just a few bucks, you might still better off using Netflix or walking to a bricks and mortar store.

[via TUAW]

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.

One of the things that makes Ubuntu such a popular Linux distribution is that it comes with a ton of useful applications preinstalled. When you first boot Windows, you may have Windows Media Player, and Internet Explorer but you need a separate application suite if you want to create and edit spreadsheets, databases, or Word documents. Ubuntu, on the other hand includes a media player, web browser, office suite, and a few other goodies.

But one thing that you can't do with a stock Ubuntu installation is play commercial DVDs. While the Totem movie player will certainly make a valiant effort at playing the video on any DVD you stick in your computer, it won't manage to bring up DVD menus and may have problems playing the video. It turns out it's very easy to enable DVD playback. Just open a terminal and type the following two lines (entering your root password when prompted):

sudo apt-get install totem-xine libxine1-ffmpeg libdvdread3

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

Or if you'd rather not play around with the terminal, you can open the Synaptic Package Manager and do a search for VLC. The VideoLan media player is capable of playing DVDs without any tweaking.

[via Tech-Recipes]

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).