CDBurnerXP is a free disc-burning program for Windows. It writes data, audio and video discs to CD, DVD, Blu-ray and HD-DVD media. It also burns and creates ISO images and copies discs. Home users and companies can both use it without charge, and the interface is available in many languages.
Building a data disc
A data project in CDBurnerXP uses two panes. An explorer pane browses the computer’s drives, and a compilation pane holds the files and folders that will go on the disc. Items move across with the Add button or by drag and drop. A capacity bar at the bottom shows how much of the disc the selection uses. You can save the file list as a compilation and update it later. Updating it adds new files, drops missing ones and refreshes file dates.
You choose the file system for each disc. UDF has the fewest restrictions and suits most modern players and computers. ISO9660 and the Joliet extension cover car stereos and portable players that cannot read UDF. Joliet allows longer Unicode file names, and the systems can be combined.
Multisession and finalizing
When a burn starts, CDBurnerXP asks whether to leave the disc open or finalize it. An open disc can take another session later. When you insert it again, the program imports the earlier sessions. It shows those files in a separate color and continues the disc. A finalized disc is closed to further writing. The advanced burn dialog adds settings for burn speed and buffer underrun protection. It also offers verification of the written data with a list of any corrupted files. Further options include a simulated burn on CD media, caching files from a slow source drive, and shutdown once the burn finishes.
ISO images and disc copies
You can save any data compilation as an ISO file instead of burning it. The ISO uses the same file system, label and boot settings. A separate ISO mode writes an existing image to a blank disc. A converter turns BIN and NRG images into ISO files so they can be burned the same way.
The copy function reads a data disc from a source drive and writes it to a target drive. With only one drive, CDBurnerXP builds a temporary image on the hard disk, ejects the original and waits for a blank disc. Choosing the hard disk as the target saves the copy as an ISO image. Copying works only with discs that have an ISO file system, and the program does not bypass copy protection.
Making a compilation bootable
Boot options turn a data compilation into a bootable CD or DVD. The user supplies a boot image, or creates one from a bootable floppy, and picks an emulation type. Floppy or hard disk emulation presents the image as drive A or C. No emulation loads the image straight into memory, as Windows installation discs do.
Audio CDs and video DVDs
An audio project in CDBurnerXP burns tracks to a standard audio CD. Track-at-once mode leaves a two-second gap between tracks, while disc-at-once mode produces a gapless disc and allows CD-Text information. You can import all tracks from an existing audio CD, edit them and burn them again. Audio CDs cannot be saved as ISO images, and ripping tracks to files requires a separate program.
For video DVDs, CDBurnerXP burns a DVD that another tool has already authored. It takes either a folder of DVD video files or an ISO image. Options pad small projects for older players, place the layer break correctly on double-layer DVD-Video and adjust navigation files for compatibility.
Other tools
CDBurnerXP also prints simple disc covers and includes a command-line version for scripted burning.
