The history of Compact Disks and everything related to them began not a very long time ago. This revolutionary storing device started somewhere in the 80' due to an agreement between two large corporations, Sony and Philips. To this date, each of them created different types of CD's but only their merging ideas led to our day-by-day storage support. Ten years later, same companies launched an improved CD which they called DVD (Digital Versatile Disk), a super density disk that at first was capable of handling up to 4,7 GB of information. As most useful technologies improve, something happened to these optical disks, for now a CD is able to store up to 900 MB of data, DVDs support over 15 GB of information, and lately a new technology comes to amaze us, Blu-Ray Disk (BD). Although 25 and 50GB of storage capacity is available, a new version is lab tested by Ritek, which involves 7 additional layers of data yelding up to 250GB.

Along all this GB race, CD/DVD reader manufacturers had to keep up with the technologies. CD/DVD writers, Ultra High Speed capability, Multi Layer reading/writing are features that became more and more spoken of and successfully used by many PC users. But all these tasks are surely impossible without a proper software. Besides the consecrated ones which do their jobs great and also look good, other applications come to tempt our eyes and our wallets with their features.

Easy DVD/CD Burner is one of those applications that tend to generalize their area of action. Or "Easy" meant to be a quality of its features? Let me show you what it can really do. For a 7-day trial and 29.95$, this program can Eject your CD/DVD drive, can provide a nag information about the contents of your CD by clicking on Disk Info button and can help you if you get lost in all those settings.

Besides its simple looks and little features, this software can quick or full Erase your Disk, it is also able to burn Data only disks and speaking of burning, it can make bootable disks. That is a great feature for it is very useful in many situations, but unfortunately it is unable to create a boot image by itself; instead, one has to load a previously created boot.img file and then add all those other files that one wants to be burned. Another quality of this application is that it can easily save data from your computer by creating an ISO image file. You can also burn a disk by loading any .iso files on your HDD.

The Settings tab is, as I was saying, "easy" in options, but at least it has the basic ones. You can Label your disk by using the Joliet File System (long file name) and you can choose to Finalize the disk for the default option is multisession. Buffer Underrun Protection (helps prevent bad burns) and Perform OPC (Optimum Power Control) are options that in my opinion must never be left unchecked; more than that, for the speed one should not risk the integrity of their burnt files.

Test Writing is a so called pseudo-burning, where the application simulates the burning activity on the drive but the disk remains unwritten. Ejecting the disk after completing the job is actually a widget but it’s a practical one for it speeds up your working process. The Show Files/Folders before Burning option is a safety first option, for it's a double check action which demands your confirmation before the actual burning starts.

Saving backups is also available by checking the Burn Archive Files Only & Clear Archive Bit After Burn option in which case, after burning, the archive attribute will be reset. The customizable Cache Size is available to older CD/DVD writers who lack a default option in this instance. Therefore, the buffer size uses the system RAM to store data.

I also failed to remind you about the lack of VCD/SVCD/DVD options, CDA/MP3 burning disks, Cover Designer and many other options. Why not call it an Easy Data Only DVD/CD Burner? Because some will skip also its specs not to further talk about buying it. Well, some of us are interested only in easy money and not prestige.

The Good

It is a really easy application to work with, it is practical for those who limit their burnings to data only and that is it.

The Bad

The title is probably used as a diversion, it has extremely limited burning options, and the looks can be improved, because the Registration window is not the only nag.

The Truth

It is an "easy" application from all points of view.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:


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