Source => Choto Cheeta Online
Its been like a monopoly for Ahead with their burning application NERO. It has almost become one of the must install application for many PC users since it comes bundled with almost all major DVD / CD burners !!
However Nero is an expensive software and under many cases, the new version’s of this product has become quite large in size and heavy on system resource consumption.
In search for alternative,
I have already taken a quick loot at Ashampoo burning studio but recently I have found another grate application, which must be the smallest burning tool I have ever seen with size of just 390kb.
Quick look at NCH Express Burn Plus
At 390kb, the
NCH express burn plus probably is the world’s smallest burning application. Compare to NERO at USD 80, its half the price and almost 1000 times smaller in size.. Unlike Nero you don’t get any bloatware either to eat your hard drive space and consume valuable system resources.
Test setup
The test setup includes
* Popular external DVD burners / writers, like -> SAMSUNG / SONY / ASUS / LG
* Integrated ones of different notebook vendors like, Lenovo / HP-Compaq / Acer.
* Sony / Moserbare / Clarion / Lasertras / Verbatrim Media.
Installation
The software is available for download and you may try and see its a very simple installation wizard.
Application start-up window
Very simple and easy to use Nero burning room type view can be seen at the application start-up window. User can select the burn type via the TABs given in the tool bar.
DATA DVD burning
One can simply drag n drop files / folders in to the large white work pane to build the burning list. The software has a status bar below to inform you as how much free space is available on your media !!
Once done, you may simply click burn to start the burning process, the software would now ask you to select your burner and in burning speed.
Unlike Nero, its very light on system resources also. Less than 7 MB of system RAM is used while its burning the DVD.
Video DVD / CD burning
There are few things which are in need to be lighten up before I explain this process.
Code:
What exactly is Video DVD burning ?
Suppose you have downloaded an office or school training video, which your trainer have provided you via internet and in XVID / DIVX (AVI) or may be in MP4 format,or may be you have purchased some music video or movie via online which is in AVI format with codec XVID / DIVX / MP4 / WMV.
Now you wish to burn them so that you can enjoy them on your normal DVD player which may not have support for XVID / DIVX. Please note, the process is no longer just burning a Video CD (VCD) or DVD. Before burning, the data needs to be converted to a burning compatible DVD or VCD video format.
With nero, when you try to do it, you may see the application which is used to archive this goal is not Nero burning rom or nero express, it is Nero vision express.
Compare to nero, this is a very basic DVD authoring software. Not much options are available to customize many settings. One can just add video files and select the PAL / NTSC format.
However, it is noticeable that by default the software doesn’t come with any encoding plugin so on first run, it goes on to download a 1.5 MB plugin to start the encoding.
Disappointment though would be the encoding time as compare to Nero vision express, it takes much longer to complete an encoding. It seems the encoding modules are not optimized to take advantage of high end multi -core systems.
Disc to Disc and Image burning
The software supports burning disc image from ISO and basic feature of Disc to Disc is also available. The burning speed is quite same as with any other burners like Ashampoo or nero..
Final thoughts ?
Although there are couple of major negatives likes,
* Its a paid ware (USD 38 )
* Poor performance in terms of video disc authoring
* No option to burn Video CD by the way...
But it does the basic job very well.
* Extremely light, just 390kb
* Really low RAM usage
* Supports up coming Windows 7
* No bundled bloatware
Over all, if my need is a basic burning tool, then I would certainly prefer this software over Nero or even Ashampoo too.
World's smallest burning apps
Linear Mode
