by Mike Swope, Posted: 3/7/04

Since the introduction of CD/DVD burning in the Mac OS Finder, it might be thought that disk burning applications are slowly being forgotten. But as we've seen with the continued popularity and development of Roxio® Toast®, long the defacto standard for burning CDs and DVDs on Macintosh, there is still room for improvement in disk burning tools. Some shareware developers, despite Toast's dominance, believe they too can improve upon the disk burning process and create better value.

Radical Breeze Software is one such developer, recently releasing DiscBlaze 3 and updating within days to v3.02, with 3.03 due yet again within days. DiscBlaze offers core burning features in a small, inexpensive package. Weighing in at 1.9 MB (down from 3.5 MB for v3.0), DiscBlaze 3.02's cool US $19.95 price tag makes it an attractive alternative to Toast for those short on dough (such as this reviewer) with the simplest of burning and disk imaging needs. DiscBlaze doesn't offer as many features as Toast, but for the most part it is a solid choice to burn data CDs and DVDs, and audio CDs.

Light It Up!

DiscBlaze 3.02 is one of a series of minor updates to the January 29th, 2003, version 3 upgrade. DiscBlaze burns data CDs in a handful of common formats, data DVDs in a handful of common formats, and audio CDs. For those who prefer them, DiscBlaze can also erase CD-RW disks. And, like Toast, DiscBlaze can create disk images as Mac/PC hybrid and DMG (OS X Disk Image), and burn both ISO and Toast disk images to disk. These features are 80% of all that anyone can ask of a disk burning application.

DiscBlaze works as expected burning data CDs and DVDs. Just select the format (Mac, PC, Mac & PC Hybrid or ISO 9660), name your disk, drag your files and folders to the DiscBlaze layout window (or click the icons at the top of the DiscBlaze window to add files and folders), insert a blank CD or DVD disk, click the most-excellent, flame-enveloped, Apple-like burn icon, select your preferred burn speed, choose whether the finished disk should be verified, or ejected or mounted after burning, and your disk is burned. Really, very similar to Toast.

Burning an audio CD is also as simple as Toast. Just select the Audio button and drag-n-drop audio files that will appear on the finished audio CD. Like Toast, DiscBlaze processes audio tracks from just about any Quicktime compatible file that contains an audio track. MP3's, WAV's, AIFF's, MOV's, MPEG's, etc are all valid file types. Radical Breeze software notes, if you can open and play a file in Apple's QuickTime Player, you can turn the file into an audio CD track that will play in any standard CD player.

DiscBlaze 3.02 also offers other features available to Toast. When burning Mac data CDs and audio CDs, DiscBlaze offers the ability to allow additional burns, aka create multi-session disks. DiscBlaze's online help reminds users to always use the same file system for all sessions on a CD, except in the case of an enhanced audio CD (see Slow Smolder section below). DiscBlaze also allows the user to choose to verify his or her disk; specify burn speed in industry-standard increments of 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x & etc.; and, unlike Toast, choose to mount the finished disk on the desktop or eject it (Toast always ejects the disk).

Backdraft

New DiscBlaze users may be confused by some of DiscBlaze's interface conventions. Although DiscBlaze borrows its paradigm from Toast and uses Data and Audio as burn styles (Toast offers four burn styles - Data, Audio, Copy and Other ), I have always found this convention dry and technical, unfriendly to the user. The average user may not be so technical. He or she just wants to burn a disk. But he or she will know what kind of disk they wish to burn, whether CD or DVD, and how it is expected to be used, i.e. Audio CD, Mac CD, PC CD, Mac + PC Hybrid CD, etc. I believe that users would find it easier to select to burn CD or DVD, and then select the format for that disk, as that mimics the decisions they have made planning the disk. This way, they are certain the disk they burn will perform as expected where expected.

During the review period, I had made the suggestion to Radical Breeze that it might also be helpful to advise users with in-window comments, especially for the definition of each format, perhaps at the bottom of the DiscBlaze window. For example, if Audio is chosen, this message might provide direction by noting, "Burn a CD that will play in most audio CD players." When choosing Mac CD, this message might say, "Burn a CD with data that can be read by Mac OS 8 - Mac OS X." When choosing a PC CD, this message might say, "Burn a CD with data that can be read by PC Windows 98 - Windows XP." Or when choosing Mac and PC Hybrid CD, this message might say, "Burn a CD with data with two partitions: one that can be read by Mac OS 8 - OS X, one that can be read by PC Windows 98 - Windows XP." Or when choosing ISO 9660 CD, this message might say, "Burn a CD that can be read by Mac OS 8 - OS X, Windows 98 - Windows XP, Linux, Unix and other operating systems." Other software titles offer such messages, and new users are certain to find them helpful. In response, Radical Breeze incorporated some tooltips into the v3.02 release just prior to publication of this review. However, tooltips for the Data and Audio buttons are still missing, and for the buttons across the top of the DiscBlaze window. I still believe that format tips will be very useful to DiscBlaze.

One format tip that would be particularly helpful should accompany the audio CD format. In DiscBlaze, the multi-session feature is available when burning to audio CDs. Multi-session audio CDs with two or more music sessions load and open in iTunes like any other audio CD, but when played on a standard CD player only the first session audio tracks are available. No one would be the wiser that additional audio tracks had been burned in later sessions on the CD. According to Radical Breeze, it is technically correct to be able to burn multi-session audio CDs, also called enhanced CDs, but the first session MUST be audio tracks and other sessions data files to conform to the enhanced CD standard. Few people will know this; fewer still will search out this information in the Help files.

I had also provided other feedback to Radical Breeze while reviewing DiscBlaze. Up to v3.02, the DiscBlaze Online Help system was, truly, online. It launched the default web browser and went to the Radical Breeze Internet web site, to a directory called 'help'. At one point during testing, I did not have Internet access, so the online help feature failed. With this feedback, Radical Breeze rolled the Help files into the DiscBlaze download, to be accessed from the user's hard disk, rather than from across the Internet. Remarkably, even with the Help files included, DiscBlaze still dropped ~40% in file size! Radical Breeze plans to move the Help files into Apple's Help Viewer for v3.03.

Perhaps the most confusing behavior with DiscBlaze is how to initiate a burn. In iTunes, the user clicks the burn icon, and the CD/DVD tray opens and the system requests a blank disk. I had expected similar behavior from DiscBlaze, since DiscBlaze borrows Apple's burn icon (albeit with a nice graphical flourish), but the burn icon in DiscBlaze is grayed out until a disk is in the user's burner. This behavior does not match our past experiences with (virtually) the same icon, and many new users like myself will wonder what to do to initiate a burn and when should a blank disk be inserted. So it would be ideal if DiscBlaze behaved like iTunes. Instead of a grayed out burn icon when no disk is present, the icon should be active at all times and, when clicked, the user prompted to insert a blank disk, if no writable media is present. Of course, if writable media is already in the drive, that disk should just be burned, not ejected, again like iTunes. With the popularity of iTunes, this behavior is expected wherever a burn icon appears. The good news is that Radical Breeze again listened. The always-active burn icon will debut in DiscBlaze v3.03.

Neither Toast, iTunes, DiscBlaze, nor any other OS X disk burning application (that I've heard of anyway) intelligently handles blank disks that have been opened by the Finder. All leave the Finder's blank disk image on the desktop even after the disk has been burned and ejected by Toast, DiscBlaze, iTunes, etc. It would be best if the blank disk image were removed from the Finder when a burn is initiated. This would eliminate much confusion on behalf of users, and perhaps some trepidation. It is just good usability design, and would be a feature unique to DiscBlaze, sure to be promptly copied by other developers. Radical Breeze has not said whether they will implement this feature in a future release of DiscBlaze.

There are other changes, too, that would increase user-friendliness. The first is to clarify what "Allow Additional Burns" checkbox in the Options dialogue box means. This message, of course, would need to change with the format selected. For PC, Mac & PC Hybrid and ISO 9660 data disks, this option is already disabled, grayed out. It is only available for Mac data disks and Audio disks. A sentence of clarification immediately below the checkbox for these disk formats would be helpful. For Mac data disks, this message might read, "Check this option to burn to this disk again as a multi-session disk; each burn will appear on your system as a separate volume." For the Audio format, this message might read, "Check this option to create an enhanced audio CD, a multi-session CD with one volume of audio tracks and other volumes of data files. The first volume MUST be in audio format and will play on standard CD players. Subsequent sessions should be in data format." Radical Breeze has not said they will implement.

Other important changes in DiscBlaze would be to allow simulated burns, prevent buffer underruns for compatible drives, and simplify disk copying, features which Toast already offers. While it is true that DiscBlaze can burn a disk image, which in turn can be used to burn another copy of the original disk, Toast has automated this process so the user need only elect to copy a disk. I believe this will be an important feature to future releases of DiscBlaze.

But the missing features that I desire most in DiscBlaze are the abilities to burn standard video DVDs and Video CDs (VCD). These, too, are important features for many Apple and Toast customers, as video moves deeper into the hearts and minds of consumers. It is considerably easier to take a DVD I've made and simply copy the files from it to my desktop and then burn those files to a video DVD in Toast to make a dupe, than to store DVD projects on my hard drive permanently, just in case I need other copies in the future. I also find it convenient to be able to burn VCDs if necessary. It is of interest to note, however, that I can burn DVD data to an ISO 9660 formatted DVD which some standard DVD players recognize and play as though the DVD adhered to specifications (namely UDF disk format). This happy surprise, however, is unreliable.

Like other notable shareware developers, Radical Breeze has responded to these notes about video DVDs and VCDs. While video DVDs are some distance off (possibly v4.0 release), VCDs are seriously being considered and may be on the visible horizon. Radical Breeze has not made any formal announcement to commit to either addition.

Slow Smolder

Unfortunately, DiscBlaze 3 also exhibited a few difficulties of the insect variety during the review period. One bug popped up in the original v3 release but has since been corrected in the 3.01 update. In v3.0, DiscBlaze sometimes burned an audio track twice (as track 1 and track 2) under certain conditions, and in some cases didn't recognize when a track was removed and a second disk burned. So the deleted track still appeared on the audio CD. Radical Breeze responded promptly to reports of these problems and within days had released a fix as v3.01.

Multi-session Mac data DVDs also posed a problem during the review period. Although the multi-session option was available when burning to Mac data DVDs, the first session to DVD-R failed to close as late as v3.01. With 3.02, the session burns, closes and verifies on a DVD-R, but no other session can be burned to the disc. Radical Breeze has responded to this behavior by stating that the culprit is that DVD-R cannot be multi-session, and that they are working on a method to determine the type of DVD disc to be burned, to better handle the idiosyncrasies between the various DVD formats available.

It's A Three Alarm

Despite the bugs and suggestions discussed above, I find DiscBlaze a solid application for basic disk burning, and Radical Breeze significantly more responsive than expected. Each time I've contacted Radical Breeze with a question or to notify them of an odd behavior in DiscBlaze, I've received a response within hours. Radical Breeze also offers an online support forum for 24-hour convenience, similar to other quality shareware developers (Big Bang Extensions comes immediately to mind).

In fact, DiscBlaze beats Toast at its own game in several instances. While Toast shows how much data will be burned, it does not show how much space is remaining. DiscBlaze, on the other hand, displays how much space is used and how much space is still available on the disk in the drive, and features a progress-like bar that displays these values graphically. If no disk is in the drive, DiscBlaze indicates only how much space is used. Toast also fails to offer a true PC CD format; DiscBlaze clearly offers a PC format.

At this writing, Radical Breeze is preparing yet another update to DiscBlaze, promising a Help system in Apple's Help Viewer, a PDF manual, an always-on burn button that requests a blank disk when none is present, user-definable audio gaps (much requested by registered users), and more error checking and handling beyond those of v3.02. The 1500 or so registered users of DiscBlaze have made a good buying decision. Priced 80% less than Roxio Toast Titanium, DiscBlaze offers a solid value among disk burning applications.

Download your trial copy today from the Radical Breeze web site. And while you're there, check out their other shareware applications (RadicalPhoto, a photo enhancer and image converter; Macabinet, a themeable drawer for storing files; Zephyr, a convenient menu to switch between applications; and RadicalSqueeze, a Zip and Tar file compressor). They have a special bundle price for all five applications. If you need any features of these other applications, the bundle price is smokin'! And don't forget to download the DiscBlaze desktops featuring the flaming DiscBlaze icon.

Review first appeared on AppleLinks.com

Mike was introduced to Apple IIe and Mac Plus computers in the CAI Lab at Missouri Western State College. Mike went on to Wichita State University and earned an MFA in Creative Writing. While at WSU, Mike bought a Mac Classic to replace his aging Plus, and launched a marginally successful but fun freelance business, Swope Design, to pay for his Mac habit. He continues to masquerade as a freelancer under this vague pseudonym, and, along with his wife, operates several web sites, including SwopeDesign.com, www.inetreviews.com, SuperPersonalized.com and ColaCollectables.com (launching February 2004). Some web work for his day job has received local awards in Wichita, Kansas, and his web sites for the MacWichita Macintosh User Group and Next Consulting Group have likewise received several awards. Mike and his wife Lynette also enjoy digital photography and offer royalty-free photographs from MorgueFile.com, iStockPhoto.com, StockExchange, and ShutterPoint.com.