What are the benefits of an ISO burn?

[archaeo]

Anything else besides better compatibility with DVDplayers?

[guns1inger]

Personally, I don't believe burning an ISO makes any difference to compatability. What does is a good burning program. I just so happens that one of the best, DVD Decrypter, can only burn ISO images. Therein lies the advantage to the ISO. The other advantage ot having ISO files is that it is all in one. You don't have to worry about lose files and folders before you burn.

[archaeo]

Personally, I don't believe burning an ISO makes any difference to compatability.

Yeah, I've never had any significant problem with the files I've burned through Nero 5.5, but I have heard that ISO is accepted more broadly between players. As you probably know gunslinger, DVDRebuilder is now incorporating Decrypter for burning, and I'm starting to look more closely at what the benefits are, besides reliability and convenience.

[mats.hogberg]

No matter how you look at it, an ISO file system has to be created when you write stuff to a recordable DVD/CD. Obviously, an ISO isn't immutable - it's up to some interpretation. I trust mkisofs, used by most stand alone ISO creation apps. They always work on my system.
Pre-prepared ISO file systems can be written directly by the burner app - if you just tell the app to write a set of folders/files, the app either has to create the ISO, then write it to disc, or create the ISO file system while burning. Keeping in mind how much can go wrong when burning DVD/CD, I feel more comfortable if the app can concentrate on writing the data - not bothering with preparing it at the same time. Hence, when I from time to time use Nero, I always first "burn" to the "image recorder", creating a .nrg image. I then write the image to disc.

/Mats

[archaeo]

Keeping in mind how much can go wrong when burning DVD/CD, I feel more comfortable if the app can concentrate on writing the data - not bothering with preparing it at the same time.

Interesting point. It makes good sense to do only one thing at time, and not load two processes into one burn... I've noticed that DVDRB includes mkisofs in the program package. I am leaning toward doing all my burning through this and Decrypter from here on.

[AlecWest]

Yeah, I've never had any significant problem with the files I've burned through Nero 5.5, but I have heard that ISO is accepted more broadly between players.

I have had problems with my Nero 5.5. There were "issues" with 5.x versions of Nero. They could be overcome by burning in a certain way. But, ever since I started burning with DVDdecrypter, I've never looked back. The only time I've ever had a bad DVDdecrypter burn (ISO) is when the disk itself was bad. But, to each their own. I'm now in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mode (grin) ... and will continue to use ISOburns via DVDdecrypter unless something both easier and free comes down the pike.

[archaeo]

I have had problems with my Nero 5.5. There were "issues" with 5.x versions of Nero. They could be overcome by burning in a certain way.

what type of problems did you have, and how did you burn 'a certain' way? could you elaborate on this?

[HARRYSPADGE]

But, ever since I started burning with DVDdecrypter, I've never looked back. The only time I've ever had a bad DVDdecrypter burn (ISO) is when the disk itself was bad. But, to each their own. I'm now in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mode (grin) ... and will continue to use ISOburns via DVDdecrypter unless something both easier and free comes down the pike.

I dont think you can get any easier or better than burning an ISO with DVDdecrypter

[TenaciousJP]

Well, I always burn my backups as ISO files because it guarantees that all the data is there.

I remember that I would just burn VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders, and sometimes I would get incorrect filesizes shown during the burning processes, and get a couple of unburnable backups. When I made those folders into ISO files, it solved the problem.

I've never had a bad ISO burn.

[blinky88]

I prefer to create a single ISO image with DVD Shrink and then burn that image file with DVD Devrypter. The reason I use this method is the lack of problems with the burning process. The single ISO image has all the necessary files in the one bundle rather than having mutiple files.

1. Use DVD Shrink to encode, re-author and shrink the DVD to a single ISO file onto your HDD. Note: The drive you are sending the image to 'has' to be formatted NTFS, if the drive is formatted Fat32 make the ISO images in 1g blocks.

2. Use DVD Decrypter to burn the ISO image, I don't believe you will be able to pick the DVD5 disc from the original DVD9.

A simple, quick, 2 stage exercise that will ensure trouble free backups .....
.... More importantly, both applications are FREE.