Software
Review of: |
 Well,
I've had another month to work with Easy CD Creator 4 Deluxe. Actually,
I'm finding it isn't living up to my expectations. Tried again to make
a copy of my favorite audio CD after two failed attempts (coasters) using
Easy CD Creator. Decided to use CD Spin Doctor this time. My first clue
was it wouldn't download the song titles from www.cddb.com.
Then when I clicked on Copy, Windows 98 locked up tight. Turned the computer
off and rebooted. A feeling of relief swept over me when I checked and
found the system didn't eat my CD ROM drivers or serial ports. So, I set
up Spin Doctor again. Clicked on Copy. You guessed it, locked tighter than
a drum. So much for making music. I have not had any luck trying to make
a copy of my hard drive to CD using Take Two either. On my third attempt,
it actually filled up one CD of a three CD set. Unfortunately, it wouldn't
recognize the second CD. That means abort time. No coasters this time,
I was using CD-RW disks. Switched to CD-RW Eraser and in a few minutes,
a clean disk just like new. Then another 24 minutes to format the disk
using DirectCD. If you don't preformat the disk, Take Two will do it before
it writes the data to it. Anyway, I can only stand so much fun, so more
on this next time.
Ever eager to get on with "my favorite CD project" (from my CDs), I hit the web on over to www.ahead.de/en/index2.htm. Under Product Info, click Supported recorders. This is a listing of the recorders Nero will support. It takes 20 pages to print the listing. If your machine is supported, click on system requirements. No, it doesn't work on Linex. Ahead Software is located in Karlsbad, Germany and offer's for download, their latest, fully functional, burner software to use at your pleasure for two months (when I downloaded it the 5th of May. Click on the Get a free Nero demo. Read the Nero demo information page for a brief summary of what's happnen'. I suggest clicking on Mirror-site to download the basic (4.8 MB) program. The three servers on the Download page are pretty busy. Then on the Download page, if you want Nero to coexist with another burner's software, download the appropriate Bootmenu. Next download the English version of HelpTool. Don't miss this, you will most likely need this great compilation of burner knowledge and wisdom. Next download the English version of the Nero ASPI driver. Next download CDROM.exe. And finally, print a copy of the Download page to help you assemble the pieces. Yes, it's worth the effort. Double click on the downloaded nero50.exe and it will display a Windows setup screen. Indicate where you want it to install the software and it sets up the program likkity split (that's fast). It puts an icon on the desktop to start the program. Double click on CDROM.exe. It will unpack and create CDROM.cfg. Copy or move this file to the Nero folder (probably in program files). This contains the supported machine configurations that Nero needs to do its thang. Next, double click on Helptoolen.exe. That will unpack its contents to a new empty folder. I guess you can put this file wherever it's convenient for you. To open it, double click on Index.htm and gorge yourself on the straight skinny (that's Army speak for good poop). Or, you can wait until things go south - and then read what you should have done. You probably noticed on the Demo page, there's no user manual and no customer support available. We're flying solo, so let's do it! When Nero loaded, it created a folder in C:\windows\temp named Nero 50. Open it and double click on Readme.txt. The file gives a history of Nero, and toward the end, lists all the burners the program supports. A bunch! It might be a good idea to read the other text files, just for information. So, let's run thru the steps to burn a data CD using the Wizard. Double click (or click if you're a net-o-file) the Nero icon on the desktop or Start-Programs-Nero. A welcome screen pops up reminding you how long you can use the program free or will be glad to accept your order for the code to permanently unlock the program (for $49.) Close this screen and the main screen appears with the Nero Wizard on top. You can Compile a new CD, Copy a CD or close the Wizard. Lets click Compile a new CD and Next. The next Wizard screen gives us a choice of Audio CD, Data CD or Other CD formats. Let's click Data CD and next. The next Wizard screen gives us a choice of: Compile a new data CD or Continue an existing data CD. Let's make a new data CD and click next. The final Wizard screen advises us to select or drag&drop the files we want to copy to our CD. Now it's time to select our recorder. Since you probably only have a CD-R\RW, our initial recording will be made to the hard disk. Click on CD-recorder on the Menu bar. Click on Choose-recorder and a screen will appear with your recorder and the Image recorder listed. Select the image recorder and click OK. When our file selections are complete, click the burn button. Nero will create an image file. When completed, select your recorder, insert a blank disk and burn-baby-burn. Remember, there must be enough free space on the hard drive to accommodate the size of the CD you want to burn, up to 600 MB for a full CD. Unless you also have a CD ROM player - then you can record "on-the-fly" with very little HD space involved and the burn speed is unbelievable. After you gain a familiarity with the program, you won't need the wizard. From the Main screen, click on the File menu-new. The New Compilation screen will appear. This is the real control panel for most of the setup for the burn. On the left is a series of icons to create the different CDs. Now don't panic on me. Remember the Helptool and index.htm to start it. Look-up the phrases or words you don't understand. If that doesn't answer your question, go back online to www.ahead.de/en/FAQs.htm. Most folks are familiar with the Frequently Asked Questions sections. The first item is a CD-R Glossary. It's extensive and runs the gambit from beginner to guru. I printed the FAQs for reference. It ran to six pages. Back to the New Compilation screen. The first icon is labeled CD-ROM (ISO). This will create a data CD that almost all CD-ROMs can read. There are six folder tabs to adjust the burn to your desires. Click the Burn tab. I recommend you check the top three items under Action. Nero will test your setup, adjust the write speed, run a simulated burn without doing anything to the blank disk. If that is successful, it will write the CD. If the simulation is unsuccessful, Nero will usually put up an error screen explaining the problem. This little feature is missing from all of the burner software I've looked at so far. It will save you a ton of time and lottsa coasters. Check the Finalize CD option ONLY when the disk is complete and ready to be read on other CD-ROMs. You can add files in multisessions until you check Finalize CD. One file or 600 MB worth, doesn't matter. Check Finalize CD and it's chiseled in stone (there is a way to reopen it in Easy CD, I haven't tried it yet in Nero). Remember, it has to be finalized before another CD-ROM can read it. Remember Disc-at-Once can only be checked if there also is a CD-ROM drive installed to read the source CD. Click the Audio CD icon and a new set of folder tabs appear. Check your preferences and click the New button. The Main screen will appear with a small Explorer window and Audio window. Find the music files in the Explorer window, select them, and drag&drop to the Audio window. Choose the recorder. Click the Burn button. An information screen will show the recording process. Quick and efficient. Also, Nero will directly convert music files on-the-fly to MP3 using the Fraunhofer encoder. You remember Fraunhofer Associates, they created MP3. The Mixed Mode CD icon is to create a single session CD that contains both computer data and audio tracks. They only play on a CD-ROM or recorder drive on the computer. For the advanced burner dude. The CD-Copy icon is to create an exact copy of an existing CD. Check your preferences on the folder tabs. Click the Copy CD button. The write CD screen will appear to display the progress of the copy to hard disk. Select your burner and it will make the copy on the blank disk. The Video CD and Super Video CD icons, I assume, are to make CDs containing MPEG video clips. I'm not into digital video yet, so I haven't tried it. The CD-ROM (boot) icon is to make a bootable CD that most late model bios' can be set to boot after the POST. To check if your computer supports CD Bootup, open the ROM bios screen at bootup. Move down to the Boot Sequence line. Check if CD is listed as an option (usually set to C,A to find the operating system). The Page up, Page down keys will display the choices. I have no idea what the CD-ROM (hybrid) icon will create. One of these days I'll give it a whorl. The CD-ROM (UDF) icon is used to format and packet write to a CD similar
to Adaptec DirectCD. If a CD is formatted on DirectCD without any files
burned, Nero will burn files to the CD. If any DirectCD burned files are
on the formatted disk, Nero can't read or write to the disk. When a CD-R
disk has files burned on it, the Finalize CD option will close it so it
can be read by most CD-ROM drives. Rewritable disks can only be read on
machines that have installed the Adaptec DirectCD reader available at www.adaptec.com
from the The CD-ROM (UDF/ISO) icon is a total mystery to me. Maybe someday. Required to run this software:
When I first loaded Nero on my machine, I wasn't prepared for the speed and sophistication of this program. I decided to give it the acid test. I put a music CD (which is really starting to show signs of wear from the car) in my CD ROM player and a blank recordable disk in my CD-R\RW. I set up to record an audio disk on-the-fly. I checked Test, Simulation and Copy. I clicked Burn and the test started. Shortly, an error message told me my CD ROM player (a 32X machine) was only capable of reading digital audio at 1X and couldn't keep up with a 4X burn. Just knowing that little tidbit would've saved me from burning a bunch of coasters using Easy CD Creator. The message suggested I record to a disk image first. I did and it was fast. My burner reads digital audio at 8X. Who would have guessed, it's a 4X4X32X burner. The copy sounds as good as the original and will play on all of my CD players. Did I mention, Nero has a bunch of filters to make all the music you throw at it sound better. I'm convinced if I'll check Test, Simulation and Copy before I click burn, my coaster burning days are history. Is that great, or what? This is must-have software if you like to use a burner. The interface takes a little time to understand, but is justified by the small, tight code that is exceptionally fast. Imagine downloading 45 to 270 MB. Or having enough confidence in their product to put a fully functional copy of the latest software on the net for anyone to download and use for two months. It boggles the mind.
Dale Swafford took his first computer coarse at George C Wallace Collage in Computer programing (FORTRAN) on an IBM 1500 series machine in 1968. Didn't buy a computer until '85 (Compaq 8086), and then joined the Capitol PC Users Group. I thought I was a Guru. Now, I'd be happy to make the cut as an intermediate user. |