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The great media burner match-up
By H. Cunningham
(5/14/03)
In this demo match, the crowds roar as glitter-boy challenger Nero Burning ROM 5.5.10.28 throws down with tech-favorite powerhouse Stomp RecordNow Max 4.5 to see which dominates the CD- and DVD-burning mat. Which one has the speed and agility to make the most out of your disc-burning hardware? One of these babies will make a slash-and-burn master of you, or at least back up your library of valuable media.
Interface
The big bucks behind these ripping and burning heavyweights show the minute they get in the ring. Both sport clean and easy-to-navigate interfaces, but RecordNow takes an early lead with its pleasing minimalist design and professional-looking graphics. Pretty only carries it so far, though. Nero opts for a packed interface with familiar Windows-type controls and file displays that show you its bevy of goods up front. Both RecordNow and Nero boast straightforward wizards for creating music or data discs with ready-set defaults acceptable to all but the most exacting listeners. Both struck scoring blows this round, coming out of their respective corners fast and furious.
Functionality
The real fight began once we skipped past the wizards and got down to the brass tacks of burning. Muscle-bound grappler RecordNow showed its style by easily selecting and extracting tracks in ISO, WAV, and MP3 format with drop-down selection from 96Kbps up to a whopping 320Kbps. RecordNow's faster read/write reflexes left Nero panting on the mat. Nero made up ground on its Save Tracks interface, putting its weight behind its mp3PRO format to crunch down bytes as well as sporting MP4, WAV, VQF, and AIF formatting options. Making up for a nominally slower burn speed, Nero packed more punch in pure file controls, letting you master naming conventions and volume settings all on the same screen. Neither of these pros turn out coasters, making playback the key; and the round went to RecordNow when we got a tiny hiccup on our third compilation from Nero, earning a foul from our ref.
Features
If you’re not inclined to just sit ringside and use the wizards for on-the-fly recording, each of these bad boys has tricks up its sleeves for championship level play. Using the easy Explorer-type controls in RecordNow you can open the media drive displays by right-clicking to start dropping tracks to your heart’s content. The handy CDDB feature automates info input for your media, though the equivalent Nero feature found more of our obscure recordings in its online database. RecordNow’s CDDB information is easier to import than Nero’s, which requires the extra step of creating a user database. Module-based Nero boasts a wider if less advanced user-oriented suite of features; in addition to the basic CD/DVD tools also found in the RecordNow bundle, Nero delivers a bloodying combination with a cover designer, a WAV editor, and a toolkit for managing drives.
Quality
Both of these brawlers are point-and-click installs, but RecordNow went wobbly in the knees getting into the ring. After a few aborted swipes, we dragged our champion back to the lockers and checked the online FAQ. Sure enough, this bad boy needs prior logagent.exe files wiped out before it steps onto the mat, so it can’t co-exist happily with some older media players. Once out in the ring, both burners easily detected CD, CD-RW, and DVD drives. Neither heavyweight Nero, weighing in at a whopping 33.4MB, or the decidedly bantam weight contender RecordNow, at 7.96MB, want to be disturbed while going through their moves; and while there were no system lock-ups while they were running, both have to be the only game going while burning.
Demo
Both the RecordNow and Nero demos give you more than a taste of what these programs do. What they pack in is good; but what’s missing in the demos can mean the difference between amateur and pro. The Nero demo leaves out the simultaneous burning, cross-fade, and virus tools of the full version, as well as limiting your use of the mp3PRO encoder by the number of encoding sessions. Even more annoying, the Help file is missing. The RecordNow demo lacks core MP3, VBR, DLA, and SVCD capabilities, along with the candy of label making and song list management; so this round goes to the Nero demo.
The winner
It was heated combat: the mighty (and mighty heavy) Nero Burning ROM up against the leaner, faster Stomp RecordNow Max. And while our judges favored the clean good looks and pound-for-pound fighter appeal of the RecordNow Max demo, this contender just couldn’t compete with the heavy artillery packed by Nero. The title goes to Nero Burning ROM by decision, and Stomp may just have to add an ed to the end of its name.
H. Cunningham, a frequent contributor to CNET, is a freelance Web designer working primarily to keep her Chihuahua in furs.
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