Is Nero a suitable alternative to Sonic DLA?

I use nero for my desktop without noticing how much CPU or RAM it hogs. I havent tried using DLA to burn stuff yet.

The only thing I use nero for is burning data files (mostly .avi movies) and music. Nero has this neat volume stabilizing function where it averages out the volume of some songs - loud music more quieter and quiet music louder. Which version of nero offers this?

And does DLA music burning software offer this too? I dont see an option in it for DLA.

 

Is Sonic DLA different from IBM DLA? I thought DLA is for packet writing only?

 

They are the same. It's just IBM branded DLA. I personally find packet writing software like DLA or InCD to be flakey and don't use it. If you get a ThinkPad with a DVD burner, it will offer DVD-RAM which is a much better way to drag and drop files in explorer.

ThinkPads come with Record Now for burning data discs and audio CDs. Packet writing software like DLA won't write audio CDs. It also comes with WinDVD Creator for making Video DVDs. I can't tell you much about WinDVD since I dumped it favor of Nero. I favor Nero as well. You can get a cheap OEM copy of Nero on eBay for like $10. I prefer version six over the newer seven.

 

The DLA is the packet-writing portion of the Sonic software, and I've also never been a fan of packet-writing schemes. Too many cross-brand incompatibility issues.

Sonic RecordNow works well, and is fast and stable, but it's not as full featured as Nero or Roxio. However, it DOES have the volume equalizing feature. I've used all three, as well as other packages, and I'm happy enough with RecordNow to not bother getting anything else.

For burning music CDs, you can also use WMP or lots of other free media players that are out there.

 

Has Nero worked out all its compatibility issues with Vista? If so, from which version?

 

The big difference with DLA vs. InCD or most others is that DLA allows writing to a CD-R instead of a CD-RW. When you delete a file the file is marked as deleted, you just don't get the space back.

Using CD-R seems to be more stable than CD-RW too, but all this was before USB sticks became dirt cheap.

 

The one BIG problem with any of the packet writing schemes so far is incompatibility with each other. If you write on one machine with Nero InCD, you can't read that disk on another machine with Sonic DLA or Roxio Drag-to-Disk. None of these formats can read the other, at least not when used in their default configurations.