StarBurn 14.1

Overview

StarBurn is a wonderful tool with which you can burn your data on different types of discs such as CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, and HD-DVD. It supports multiple kinds of optical storage media including, but not limited to, CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, and DVD+R/RW, and a number of burning hardware as well. Apart from all these abilities, it allows you to build images, convert audio files to different formats (like WAV, WMA, MP3 and OGG), create virtual drives, grab audio or image, and much more.

Installation

It is recommended to close other running applications before starting its installation. In the beginning, you can select your preferred installer language and then select generic details like setup destination path, Start Menu folder, and Additional tasks (Desktop icon and install CD, DVD emulator). There are several offers shown by installer; one of them is to install StarBurn Search provider and its additional options (StarBurn search as homepage, StarBurn search as browser’s search provider). The other offer is to install StarWind Software Storage controllers, but both these are optional so you can skip them if these are irrelevant to you. The tool is supported by following Window versions: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/Server2008/7/8.

Interface

Although interface of StarBurn is simple and user-friendly but it not might seem so in the first glance, probably due to its abundant features. Experienced users can work with this tool easily and if beginners find it a bit hard to use it, they can refer to its online Help file which is very detailed and useful. The main window shows several icons for the functions it performs such as Burn Data, Burn Audio, Add local device, Burn VCD, Burn Image, Convert Audio and so on. On clicking any icon, a new window is opened showing the fields to perform the selected function, for instance, ‘Convert Audio’ window shows the source file name and destination file name fields. You can view StarBurn in Old School look (similar to Windows Explorer) by checking the “Old School View” option under Settings.

Pros

• It supports numerous types of storage media including CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, BD-R/RE, HD-DVD-R/RW and DVD-RAM media
• The Data Burner wizard lets you burn a bootable Data CD/DVD or Blu-Ray/HD-DVD disc; you can even choose to save the logs after the burning is completed
• You can burn an audio CD from existing WAV, MP3, OGG, or WMA files by selecting the ‘Burn Audio’ feature
• Another benefit of Burn Data feature is that it lets you burn an MP3 music CD or DVD from a MP3/WMA files without de-compressing them and stores an intermediate copy on your system’s hard disk
• Additional features of a SVCD or Super Video CD compared to a Video CD are that it includes interactive menus, hyperlinks, karaoke lyric highlighting, playlists, and more. With StarBurn, you can burn SVCD as well as VCD discs from MPEG1/MPEG2 files
• With this tool, there is no need to rename long file names before burning them or to use additional tools to split huge files, since its UDF (Universal Disc Format) file system support enables you to store files larger than 2 GB and with names up to 2048 characters long
• It supports session import mode in which the same media can be used for recording subsequent data, as the new data can co-exist with previously recorded data
• This tool creates Bridge file system which is DVD-Video compatible, and this media is readable with both old Windows 95/DOS machines and stand-alone DVD players
• Other useful features that this tool has to offer are: it enables you to create an ISO image file from existing files and folders; it lets you erase a rewritable CD/DVD, Blu-Ray/HD-DVD disc; and you can also create a virtual CD,DVD, Blu-Ray drive from an existing ISO image file

Cons

None found.

Alternatives

A fit alternative for StarBurn is a tool named Nero Burning ROM which has the ability to burn ISO files, CD, DVD and Blu-Ray data, moreover, it can erase rewritable discs as well. ImgBurn is a fast and lightweight application for burning large amounts of data to CD, DVD, HD, DVD, and Blu-Ray discs.

Conclusion

It is a rare thing that a free-of-cost application like StarBurn has so much to offer and is very efficient in performing whatever it offers. It is loaded with several useful features giving you the full control of burning, grabbing or even erasing data of different types of discs, so one should definitely give it a try.