DeepBurner is a lightweight, powerful, and reliable burning application for CDs and DVDs. Its intuitive interface and wizards make it easy to use for anyone, from home users to professionals. DeepBurner handles data, audio, and video discs, including ISO images and backups. It supports a wide range of drives (IDE/EIDE, USB, SCSI, FireWire) and media types (CD/DVD±R/RW, DVD-RAM), along with features like overburning, buffer underrun protection, and multi-session burning. It also offers bootable disc creation, file/disc caching, long file name support, and multi-recorder support. Plus, you can create disc covers and inserts. DeepBurner Free is available for Windows 95/98/2000/NT/ME/XP.

DVD Shrink, a free DVD copying and burning tool, offers decryption to bypass copy restrictions. While it allows users to compress DVDs, save them to hard drives, and even re-author them, its age presents significant limitations. Though useful for retrieving data from older DVDs, its lack of updates since 2005 causes compatibility issues with modern operating systems (even Windows 7 and Vista). It also relies on Nero for burning and struggles with newer encryption, often resulting in errors and quality loss. Therefore, while free, DVD Shrink’s practicality is severely limited for current DVDs.

RatDVD compresses DVD-9 movies into small (~1GB) .RatDVD files, preserving all original DVD features: anamorphic widescreen (16:9, 4:3, Pan/Scan, Letterbox), seamless branching, multiple angles/audio/subtitles, alternate versions/endings/commentaries, original menus/navigation, and bonus features. It supports AC-3 audio, IMDB-connected XML tagging, automatic file naming, ISO creation/burning, and checksummed containers. RatDVD files display tagging info in Explorer and play in various media centers/players. It offers high-speed analysis with size prediction and optional anonymous sharing of results.

CDBurnerXP, a free Windows utility by Canneverbe, simplifies CD/DVD burning. While the latest version dates back to April 29, 2014, and primarily supports Windows XP and earlier, it remains a popular choice, especially in countries like India, the US, and Romania, due to its small footprint and ease of use. Recent updates included improved DVD-Video burning and a new MSI installer.

DAEMON Tools Lite is a free Windows program for creating and mounting virtual CD/DVD images. It supports various Windows versions (XP to 10) and is also available for macOS. While the free version includes adware, paid versions (Lite Personal, Pro, and Ultra) are ad-free and offer more features, including bootable drive creation (Pro/Ultra), VHD/TrueCrypt archive support (all but Lite), RAM disk creation (Personal/Ultra), burning capabilities (all but Lite), and image management tools (all but Lite). Paid versions also offer file sharing to mobile devices via local wireless networks. While the Lite version’s interface displays advanced features, they are locked. Paid versions also receive better support.

ShrinkTo5: High-quality DVD copying made easy. This fast, cross-platform, open-source engine prioritizes main movie quality whether you copy just the film or the entire disc. No complex setup required—ShrinkTo5 automatically optimizes the results.