Showdown: Mac Disc Burners

Go to MacUpdate and search for “disc” and “burn”. Quite a few apps, huh? And these aren’t even all of them. There’s a plethora of burners for OS X, and more coming out each week. Each of them has their pros and cons, and today we’re going to see which one comes out on top.

1. DiscBlaze

Recognize the name? DiscBlaze is sold boxed in Apple Retail stores all over the world. It’s made it’s way to version 6.0, yet is still basic. The interface is wonderful. You can arrange “folders” of discs in the sidebar and burn them later, or just do a quick disc. DiscBlaze can also set a custom icon for your disc. The app also does PC Discs and Hybrid Mac and PC discs, as well as Audio CDs and MP3 CDs.

Pros: Intuitive UI, custom disc icons, disc “folders”, can burn many different kinds of discs.

Cons: May be a bit too simple, not many features, big price tag for such few features, takes a while to find all the features.

Price: $19.95

2. Burn

Burn is a simple and free open source disc burner for OS X. It does what a disc burner should do, burn files, music, videos, and can copy other discs/images. It burns different formats; from CDs to DVDs to VCDs to DivX Disc and burns Audio CDs. It may be too simple for some, though. The UI is simple but works, and best of all, it’s free.

Pros: Simple, does basic burning nicely, burns many kinds of discs, is completely open source and free, good if you don’t want to spend money on a disc burner yet want something.

Cons: May not have enough features for some, UI may be too simple, interface is not great, has a few bugs here and there which can get annoying, takes a while to get used to.

Price: Free

3. Disco

Disco is a brand new burning app. Disco has some features that other simple disc burners don’t have. It keeps records of all the discs you burnt, it can nicely span files over two discs, and has some great eye candy. Disco can also do multiple session discs, which is great if you want to add files to an already burnt disc. Smoke appears when you burn a disc, which really does make burning discs fun. The smoke is also interactive, play around with it using your mouse or blow it away by blowing into your microphone. The app is small and compact, it barely takes up room on your screen, yet it is very powerful.

Pros: Small but powerful, can burn multi-session discs, does great disc spanning, is compatible with many disc formats, keeps records of burnt discs, barely takes up room on screen, great eye candy.

Cons: UI does not fit in with OS X’s UI, eye candy can be distracting.

Price: $14.95 *You can save 25% by using the coupon code “MACAPPER” when purchasing*

4. Toast

Roxio has been in the disc burning business for ages, so they’re the ones to trust when it comes to burning. They recently released Toast Titanium 8, which adds some slick new features into their already huge feature list. Toast can burn almost any type of disc- from DVDs to Blu-ray. Toast can convert tapes, vinyl, or anything that can be hooked into your Mac through audio input into playable files and CDs, as well as rip (unprotected) DVDs and copy them. It can span discs and burn files on either Mac, PC, or Hybrid Mac and PC discs, can transfer TiVo & EyeTV shows to your iPod, PSP, DivX Disc and DVD, and lets the user mix their own audio discs with custom transitions between songs. It lets the user create photo montages, disc labels, and more, and also keeps track of what discs the user has burned.

Pros: Incredibly powerful and feature packed, can burn DVDs, rip DVDs, transfer shows from TiVo and EyeTV, can convert songs from records, tapes, and more, can mix audio discs, create photo montages and disc labels, can burn Blu-ray, keeps track of discs burnt, and has a nice UI.

Cons: Hefty price tag.

Price: $99.99

Update: I know a lot of you use LiquidCD and shadowBurn, but I didn’t want to make this article too long. I added these to the article at the risk of making it a bit longer.

5. LiquidCD

LiquidCD is one of the most popular free disc burners for OS X, and comes with a sleek and stylish UI. It does the basics, such as Music, Videos, Data, and Photos. However, it does them with a nice touch. You can set preferences, such as delay time, for each individual song burnt, as well as see the album art and extra metadata for the song. You can also add data to an Audio CD, such as Music Videos. Dragging photos on a disc will not only burn them, but, if enabled, create a PictureCD playable on your DVD burner. It supports burning VIDEO_TS folders, disk images, bin/cue files, and more. And best of all, it’s free.

Pros: Free, nice UI, burns PictureCDs and does very nice music burning.

Cons: Does not burn and convert video files to DVD, only VIDEO_TS.

Price: Free

6. shadowBurn

shadowBurn is yet another stylish burning app. It’s UI is a bit different in terms of choosing what type of disc you want to burn and file listings, but it works. It’s all built around simplicity and ease of use. It does disc images, Mac and PC discs, disk images, CDs, DVDs, and MP3 discs. It doesn’t do audio discs, photo discs, or videos.

Pros: Simple, easy to use, low price.

Cons: Doesn’t do audio, photo, or video discs, not many features.

Price: $15.00

Conclusion: Toast. The price is worth the app. You’ll end up using almost all the features sooner or later and will feel secure knowing you’re using an app made by a company who’s been in the burning business longer than most others. Toast has more features and is more stable than any of the other burners.

If you have no money, Burn or LquidCD is the answer, or just use OS X’s built in burner! The built in burner may not do the fancy things that Toast and Disco do, but it definitely works, and is great for burning files quickly.

Update: I know a lot of you use LiquidCD and shadowBurn, but I didn’t want to make this article too long. I added these to the article at the risk of making it a bit longer.

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