Free Disc Burner is just one of the 21 freeware applications offered by DVDVideoSoft, a major software developer. Free Disc Burner is a simple-to-use program with an equally simple-looking user interface.

Looking at its features, one notices that it could perform tasks usually reserved for top-end DVD burning software. Here it’s all about simplifying the DVD burning process for the first-time user. Free Disc Burner 1.1 is available as a 3MB download at major reputable software download sites. For an utility with such a small file size one is amazed that it could perform tasks like burning a Blu-Ray disc.

Compatible with Windows XP and Vista, it could, apart from Blu-Ray, write DVD Dual Layer, DVD+R / DVD+RW, DVD-R / DVD-RW, DVD-RAM, CDR / CDRW discs. You could write any files from any folders to any disc. Multi-session burning is also supported. If you want to reuse rewriteable media, the program offers the erase feature.

One major worry of users during disc burning is ending up with a buffer underrun. This occurs during the burning process when the burner begins running out of data in the recording buffer. With the laser not having the stop and resume ability, the data in the disc becomes invalid. The result is an unusable disk.

This happens usually when data is transferred from a slow source like a sluggish hard disk or from another CD or DVD disc. It could also occur when CPU usage is at the maximum or overload of memory resources owing to other tasks running in the background. To protect against wasted discs, buffer underrun protection is offered.

In the case of Free Disc Burner, Burn-Proof and Just Link technologies are offered. Burn-Proof suspends and resumes the burning process when the recorder’s buffer begins to run out. Just Link offers protection in disc-to-disc burning and especially when data is written at high speed. It comes in handy when other applications are running in the background during the disc burning process.

Other features offered by Free Disc Burner are:

• Advanced speed detection ability
• Advanced random file system detection anywhere on the disc
• Ability to auto select write modes
• Multi-session or disc-at-once writing of supported media formats including Blu-Ray (BD-R and BD-RE)
• Easy file and folder manipulation
• Support for UNICODE file and folder names

A notable feature is Free Disc Burner’s ability to write disc images on the fly. This saves burning time because staging to hard disk is not necessary.

The Burning Process

The interface has five menu buttons on the right button – the add file, the add folder, the explorer, the remove file/folder and Quick Erase buttons. On the bottom half of the interface is the option to select the media type and a capacity bar which shows the amount of disc space that will be used and the available disc space. You can then go and give a title for your disc and select whether you want to burn a multi-session disk or go for the disc-at-once mode. When you have selected the necessary options click OK and the burning process starts.

Give Free Disc Burner a try for hassle-free disc burning.