mac newbie, wants to know how to burn CDs/DVDs

Serene

Serene

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Hi there! I'm fairly new to the Mac. The first time I used one was for school. (I am studying digital graphics). I got my own iMac G5 about a couple months ago, 20-inch with superdrive, etc., and some added memory.

I have some questions about burning. I've burned about a couple CDs from my old mp3 collection on iTunes. It worked fine. I wanted to know how to copy CDs and DVDs. I know I probably need to buy some kind of software. What is the best software for copying CDs and DVDs? I have a few CDs and DVDs that I have played so much I need to back them up. I haven't tried copying a CD yet. I haven't burned any DVDs so I want to know if it actually works. I've read here that some people have problems with burning CDs or DVDs and such. I sure hope there is nothing wrong with my iMac. Any kind of response and/or help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Serene
 
Also, you can use Disk Utility, which is in your Utilities folder, in your Applications folder, to do any sort of disk duplication. Simply insert the disk, then make a "Disk Image" out of it ( make a Disk Image from a folder, then choose the CD). You can then eject the CD and burn duplicates from the Disk Image.

This should work for CDs and DVDs. If, though, you find this limiting, and also want to do stuff like CDs that contain Music AND Data, Video CDs, or fanciers stuff like that, yeah, you'll need Roxio Toast.
 
Thanks for the replies UpQuark77 and adambyte! I will try Disk Utility.
Though, if that doesn't work, can anyone tell me what the difference is between Popcorn and Toast? I don't know if this has already been asked before, but which one is "better"?
 
For copying CDs, I just read 'em into iTunes and burn from there.

Copying DVDs is a tad more problematic. You mightt check out
videohelp.com and ripdifferent.com to get the basics.
 
Popcorn and Toast do two different things, although Toast does everything that Popcorn does now.

Popcorn is for compressing and/or copying video DVDs and video DVD files like VIDEO_TS folders. It will not copy a protected, commercial DVD for legal reasons that should be quite apparent.

Toast is for a wide range of media authoring -- in addition to copying/compressing DVDs to fit on 4.7GB DVD+-R/W media, it can also author video DVDs with menus and the like from raw MPEG/AVI/MOV files. It also provides utilities for copying/authoring data CDs and DVDs in a wide range of formats.

Short answer: Popcorn copies/compresses DVDs. Toast does everything Popcorn does and a whole lot more. Popcorn is for copying DVDs only, while Toast is for a wide range of media authoring for audio, video and data disks.

I bought Popcorn and haven't used it once. I bought Toast Titanium 7 and couldn't live without it. if you author media or need a swiss-army knife for creating optical media, Toast 7 is an indispensable tool.
 
I like Toast for this. The Disk Utility app creates another step for you, and it's not as intuitive as Toast.
 
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