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What is DVD burning?

DVD burning just means writing files/data, they could be music, audio or video, to a blank DVD. You can also burn to a CD though these can store less information, or a Blu-ray which will store more.

There are a host of different DVD formats but the ones you will commonly encounter are:

• DVD-R – can record up to 4.7Gb of information, at 16x speed, one write only.
• DVD-RW – can record up to 4.7Gb of information, at 6x speed, can be written over multiple times.
• DVD+R – can record up to 4.7Gb of information, at 16x speed, one write only.
• DVD+RW – can record up to 4.7Gb of information, at 16x speed, can be written over multiple times.

Sharp eyed readers will notice there’s almost no difference between the ‘dash’ and ‘plus’ DVD formats. It’s simply because two separate groups, the DVD Forum and DVD+RW alliance, produce the respective formats.

The Forum includes Sony, Toshiba and Phillips amongst other, while the DVD+RW Alliance includes companies like Dell, HP and Yamaha. And some like Sony are members of both.

Remember that anything that you can transfer files/data to, can be referred to as blank media.

What software do I need?

There are two separate Nero programs you can use; Nero 9 Reloaded, which includes all sorts of useful video, audio and photo editing features as well, and BackItUp & Burn which is designed to let you back-up all your data.

Tell me how to burn a DVD.

First check your DVD is the right one for your drive – you’re not going to be able to burn a Blu-ray disc if you don’t have a Blu-ray R drive. Then insert your disc, from the Windows pop-up menu choose to burn a disc with Nero, and then the wizard will take it from there.

Who is Nero?

Nero are software company who specialize in “liquid media technology”, essentially allowing consumers to enjoy their data – music, videos, audio, files – on whichever type of media or device they want to.

Practically this means that most of their software is either geared towards streaming, ripping/burning CDs and DVDs or re-coding files so they work on different devices.

What do they do?

Nero produce five separate products and a range of plug-ins to further improve the software. They are also a big player in supplying products for the business market.

When did they start?

They were founded in 1995 by Richard Lesser in Karlsbad Germany. Originally called Ahead software they changed their name to reflect Nero Suite, their top CD burning software.

As burning software has become less important Nero has adapted; they now produce software allowing customers to easily transfer files across different formats and devices, stream content around their homes and backup their data.

Nero Burning ROM is allegedly historical pun on Nero, the Roman Emperor who supposedly ‘fiddled while Rome burned’ in AD 64.

What’s available?

Nero 9 Reloaded is the premiere package which allows you to edit photos, audio and video and then burn or transfer to just about any media you can think of.  It also comes with free back-up software.

There’s Nero Linux 4 which offers many of the great burning/ripping functions from Nero 9 for Linux users.

Nero BackItUp & Burn is software designed to protect every important piece of data you have. It allows you produce physical back-ups to hard drives, CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, FTP, memory card, and online storage.

You can schedule regular back-ups, sync files and folders and even recover data from damaged media.

Nero Move it lets you quickly and easily transfer all video, music and photo formats to portable devices, taking all the hassle out of the different codings for you.

Nero Media Home 4 is a brilliant piece of software that allows you easily stream media wirelessly throughout your house, from your PC to compatible devices like your Xbox 360 or PS3.

What accessories does Nero have?

There are a number of plug-ins that you can download from the Nero site to improve your Nero Reloaded 9.

The Gracenote plug-in gives you information for every audio file in your collection, including titles, album names, track number and album art for over 80 million songs on 6 million CDs.

The Blu-ray Disc Authoring plug-in allows you to edit HD video and then burn it to a Blu-ray Disc.

The DTS (Digital Theater System) supports the amazing DTS sound format, so when you use Nero to watch DVDs with DTS you can experience that cinema sound.

mp3PRO allows you to compress files to smaller than MP3, encoded at 64 kbs which equals 128 kbs in regular MP3; twice the sound quality in a smaller file.

Who can use it?

Nero software is optimised for Windows and don’t produce Mac OS versions. They do however have burning suite for Linux users called, unsurprisingly, Nero Linux 4.