Ashampoo Burning Studio 18
For those who haven’t dumped the optical drive
WE LIKE ASHAMPOO. It’s hard to hold anything against a software company whose slogan is “We make software!” And we admire its directness—even if we’re not totally sure about that name.
We respect it, too, for still making burning software in 2017, when the world has long since moved on to flash or cloud storage for transferring files. There are a great many uses for those shiny disks, however, and with BDXL discs capable of holding 100–128GB of data, the market for them as an archivable backup solution is strong. But in a world where you can find DVD burning apps for free on the Internet, why go to the effort of paying for one?
Fans of the BurningStudio series will no doubt be wondering why Ashampoo has done a Microsoft and skipped a number, going straight from BurningStudio16 to 18. Something to do with 17 being an unlucky number, apparently, and anyone who’s felt better for noticing that a building lacks a 13th floor will surely sympathize with that.
So, what’s here that’s worth paying for? Free apps tend to be limited in scope, so having every feature in one place is certainly nice. Along with the standard burning of data folders to a disc, and the production of audio CDs, you get a mode that tunes a disc especially for the model of stereo in your car. Now, we’ve never had a problem getting in our Benz and worrying that a CD might have been made with a Ford in mind, but we’re talking about MP3 CDs here, and not all car stereos want the same folder structure from a disc, so it’s a thoughtful inclusion. The app also includes an equalizer for tweaking the output of your music files when burning as a standard audio disc.
Movies get a similar level of attention to detail—with MPEG-4, H.264, and AAC added to the list of supported formats, the masterpieces you shoot on your cell phone can be committed to shiny polycarbonate for posterity. That these are also common formats found on torrent sites (or so we’re told) is merely a happy accident. The app wants to be an editing suite, too, bringing in cuts and transitions, sound effects, photo slideshows, and a cover designer.
It’s also a backup app. Large amounts of data can be stored across multiple discs, thanks to disc-spanning, and there’s compression and password-protection, too. The main reason you’d want to do this rather than chuck everything on a suitably sized external hard drive is longevity—while most disc formats offer only a lifespan of up to five years, Millenniata’s M-Discs claim up to 1,000 (although this is difficult to test; we’re working on communicating with some cyborg future-Zak to find out if they live up to their promise). That’s the kind of longterm data archival capability untouched by hard drives.
You’re mainly buying convenience and peace of mind when you purchase an app like this. With so many functions bundled into one package, you’d have to skip across several free apps to get the same level of service, and deal with a dearth of updates, or poor coding, or a lack of compatibility with disparate hardware. If disc-burning is still something that’s important to you, BurningStudio 18 is packed full of features and works well. Anyone else should just buy a big USB drive.
Ashampoo Burning Studio 18
VERDICT7THE BURN Comprehensive features; useful backup capabilities; straightforward to use.
THE BIRD Many PCs now sold without optical drives; 2TB hard drives are cheap .
RECOMMENDED SPECS Dual-core 1.8GHz CPU; 2GB RAM; at least 128MB VRAM; Windows 7 or newer.