#1 Burning Software

Gentlemen,

we're happy to announce we've released version 4.0.0 of our CD/DVD burning SDK. This version together with quite a lot of bugfixes has one huge step in forward: we've migrated from Visual C++ 7.0 compiler to Microsoft DDK 3790 compiler. This means in a counted weeks we'll be the only company offering CD/DVD burning solution natively supporting AMD64 Windows OS. So "i386" in the directory names would be soon accompanied with "amd64" directory Our current customers would get AMD64 update free of charge (as a part of our free year of support and updates). So countdown began, hold on!

Also now we offer not only dynamic linking but also static linking. Offering to all of our customers (originally static linking was avaiable "on request" basis only to UNLIMITED version purchasers). For now you can skip having bunch of DLLs (OK, now this is one and only StarBurn.dll) with your own application distribution. ATTENTION! Static linking is not possible in case of using non-C compiler (Delphi). B/s there is no way to link to .lib static library files.

Also we've added StarWave compression/decompression library headers and static libraries. There is still lack of documentation and samples (StarWave would be separate toolkit soon, however StarBurn SDK would be shipped with StarWave SDK embedded) but headers are sell-documenting and quite easy. And you can always bug our support with questions

And finally we've managed to add build scripts to C and Delphi samples. No more crys "Oh, I cannot builde EXECUTABLEEEEEEES!!!"

OK. That's all for now. Happy programming and stay tuned!

Anton,

I was wondering if you could give a quick explanation of what you think distinguishes Starburn SDK from the Hpcde SDK? i.e. why is Starburn better?

Also, does the new 4.0 version include CD Text support?

-A potential customer

Released but does not work. For more details see new topic

I guess hpCDE is a bit overpriced comparing to StarBurn SDK.

Next step would be more extended DVD burning support (importing session for UDF etc), full CUE/BIN support and only then CD-Text for burning AudioCDs.

Alex, we're checking this issue out. Could you please FOR NOW check the samples we've included with SDK. Does they work for you? Thank you!

Yes, incuded executable works fine.
But built ones do not.

Alex,

hold on. We've found the reason. Delphi support got broken (actually not updated). We're working on fix and thinking about compensation to you for moral loss. Please wait till the end of the day.

Thank you for your patience!

I've rechecked Primo stuff and I need to admit they did a nice solid product in the latest version! So the comparation would be...

VideoCD/SuperVideoCD/DVD-Video. StarBurn supports them all and hp does not support them at all. So I guess we're winning here and if you need to work with video stuff you should stay away from hp product... And we're expected to start supporting CUE/BIN format soon

AudioCDs. StarBurn cannot handle CD-Text for burning and hp can. From the other side StarBurn allows to compress resulting WAVs and grab directly to WMAs and hp cannot. So I guess 1:1 here (and we'll be supporting CD-Text quite soon as there have been too many requests).

HFS. Primo supports Mac file system format and StarBurn does not. I do not know who needs HFS for now but if you need you'll definitely need to go for hp library as we do not even have plans to support HFS.

Primo does support Packet-At-Once and StarBurn does not. It's not a big deal to add such a feature. I'm just not a big fan of packet writing myself

Primo does have only dynamic libraries and we provide a choice of dynamic and static libs. So we're a bit more flexible here.

Primo has only C++ samples and we're supporting Delphi programmers as well (however our Delphi support is far from being perfec so I'd not call us a winners here...)

We do support MDS as disc image format (Alcohol 120% and daemon tools are alive and up and running!) and hpCDE does support aleady dead CloneCD format. Not a good idea from my point of view...

I think this is more detailed comparation and it's over Rest of the stuff seems to be identical.

Except the fact hpCDE costs 10 times more then cheapest StarBurn license

Anton,

Thx for the detailed reply. I'm hoping you can aswer one more question:

For CD Recording, how accurate is your app with Damaged and/or protected disks? i.e. will it work in a similar manner to EAC which seems to work very well even when various damage/protection schemes are used?

-A potential customer

I do not know much about app called "EAC" (and too lazy to Google it and pretend I know but StarBurn uses own EDC/ECC software engine. Thus we turn off drive's hardware error correction and process all the data in software only. Results better grabbing results (faster and less errors). Also we have the code to amplify weak sectors. So protected game CDs should be grabbed correctly (with whole subchannel and bad block data stored), emulated with Alcohol/Daemon Tools or recorded back later with StarBurn or Alcohol (as we use MDS format for images).

Some commecrial applications are based on StarBurn and it's rebranded versions. But I cannot list them

However if you're interested in EXACTLY this features I'd recommend you do whole testing yourself before purchasing. Protected games supports is a very "questionable" feature and we'll not claim we're "number one" with it

I hope I've answered your question.

I should have been more specific in my question. EAC = Exact Audio Copy, and it will allow users to backup their CDs to their PCs even with the various audio cd protection schemes that are used.

I wouldn't consider this to be 'questionable' since any purchaser of music today has fair use rights to listen to their music on portable audio devices that they own--i.e. they have the right to rip purchased CDs so that they can listen to their music on a portable device.

And one last question:
When do you expect CD-Text to be working? (if we choose StarBurn, we'll need it right away).

This or next week if something would not go fundametally wrong.

Alex is busy with CD-Text implementation right now so I think he can put some more light in this

Hello,

It will be implemented by the end of this week.

Bye.

Re. CD-text, sounds good. I'll check for this on the weekend.

Re. exact audio copy, when you have a minute, check out:
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/eac3.html

It gives a decent idea of what EAC does to improve the chances of a good rip even when a CD is damaged in some way. I'd be curious of how you think your routine stacks up.