# World's smallest burning apps



## Choto Cheeta (Apr 17, 2009)

*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*

*www.chotocheeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/nch_bs.jpg

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.

*www.chotocheeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/test_hw_1.jpg

*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.

*www.chotocheeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/nch_startup-300x204.jpg

*
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 !!

*www.chotocheeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/nch_startup-300x204.jpg

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.

*www.chotocheeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/nch_task_manager.jpg

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.


```
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.

*www.chotocheeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/nch_pal_ntsc-300x264.jpg

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.

*www.chotocheeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/nch_video-300x277.jpg

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*

*www.chotocheeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/nch_image_burn.jpg

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.


----------



## harryneopotter (Apr 17, 2009)

awesome piece of info man ... and welcome back to the forum


----------



## NucleusKore (Apr 17, 2009)

Well Bashburn is only 82.5 kb. I guess that's the smallest.


----------



## shaunak (Apr 17, 2009)

Infra Recorder is a brillian app too. [*infrarecorder.org/]


----------



## thewisecrab (Apr 18, 2009)

ImgBrn pwns all !


----------



## comp@ddict (Apr 18, 2009)

^^^Absolutely, it's better than anyother, and has more features than some commercial apps.


----------



## thewisecrab (Apr 18, 2009)

^^
I once burned a complete 4.5 GB DVD (with various files like music, pics, videos) using ImgBrn in under 4 minutes


----------



## Kl@w-24 (Apr 18, 2009)

ImgBurn FTW!!!


----------



## IronManForever (Apr 18, 2009)

I used CD Burner XP for a long time. Its been long since I burned by last disc though. 
---
[offtopic]
Can anyone recommend me a tool to create *.iso files? For Windows XP/Vista?


----------



## NucleusKore (Apr 18, 2009)

IronManForever said:


> ---
> [offtopic]
> Can anyone recommend me a tool to create *.iso files? For Windows XP/Vista?



IsoMaster
Linux version is free
Windows version isn't..hahaha

*www.littlesvr.ca/isomaster/


----------



## ico (Apr 21, 2009)

I like Ashampoo Burning Studio. It is not the smallest, but it is good.


----------



## iPiyush (May 10, 2009)

ImgBurn all the way


----------



## spikygv (May 11, 2009)

ImgBurn doesnt seem to support multisession. OR did i miss it ?

Please suggest me a light weight DVD burning tool which supports multi session.


----------

