LiquidCD is easily the best free disc burner I have used for Macintosh. It has everything I could possibly want in a burning app, aside from one tiny feature, but that feature is something I would only seldom use (and there are other ways to achieve what’s missing), that I hardly feel like marking down this fine program on account of it.
Traditionally, people wanting to burn discs on a Mac had a couple options. The first was go with what functionality is provided by the operating system itself. When considering that iTunes can burn mp3 or audio discs, iPhoto can burn images into a Photo CD, Disk Utility can burn .dmg and .iso images, and the Finder itself can burn data discs, it’s obvious that the Mac has a wealth of options built-in, but no centralized program to access all the available features.
The second option was to purchase a commercial program, such as Toast. Toast has a ton of great features, and is miles ahead of the functionality built into the operating system. The problem, of course, is that Toast costs money. Quite a bit, in fact. A full license for Toast currently runs around 80 dollars. But the features may make the cost worthwhile, since Toast is able to convert most audio and video formats into audio discs or DVD discs, playable on nearly any player, as well as burning standard data discs.
There is also a third option, which is the many free programs available for Mac. In my opinion, LiquidCD is easily the best of these free programs, and for users wanting more than the operating system, but less than Toast, LiquidCD is the perfect program.
First of all, LiquidCD is free. It isn’t open-source, so no one but the author can modify or distribute the code, but that’s fine. Coming at this program with recent Linux experience, a non-open-source project is a rarity, but it’s certainly allowable! LiquidCD is completely free to download, completely free to use, and although there is a menu option to donate to the project, it is not required to access all the features LiquidCD has to offer.
And those offers are plentiful. First, LiquidCD is able to burn standard data discs, both CD and DVD, and – if your disc drive supports it – burning to dual layer DVD discs.
Next, LiquidCD can burn your music files into an Audio CD. One nice option in Audio CD burning is the ability to set the space inserted between tracks. LiquidCD defaults to a 2-second silence, but for some burning situations, like a live concert, a zero second gap is preferred. LiquidCD allows the user to set this interval on a global level, or a track-by-track basis.
In addition to burning audio files (anything Quicktime can read, aside from protected content from the iTunes Store), LiquidCD can take those files and turn them into what is known as an MP3 CD, which is capable of holding somewhere between 8-12 hours of music in MP3 format, depending upon the song’s bitrate.
Finally, LiquidCD can burn what is called an Extra CD, which is simply an audio disc that has additional information, such as text files, pictures, videos or other documents, while still being able to be played in a standard CD player. Producing one of these discs is as simple as creating an audio CD, then dragging any additional files into the Data tab of the main interface. Very well done, and easy to use, as well!
Moving on, LiquidCD can also deal with photos, burning any amount of pictures into a Picture CD. This disc should be playable in most any DVD player, and – if inserted into a Mac with iPhoto installed – should cause iPhoto to start automatically, and offer to play or import the photos.
LiquidCD can also burn properly-formatted files into a Video DVD. This is a nice feature, but only properly-formatted files will be correctly burned. This is the one feature I feel is currently missing, which – if included – would truly make LiquidCD a great program. Other programs – like Toast – are able to take a Divx file and convert it into the correct MPEG file for burning to Video DVD. The MPEG format is copyrighted and while players can play the format for free, it is necessary to pay a licensing fee in order for a program to convert to the format. LiquidCD, being free, does not pay that fee, so is unable to convert videos in that way.
I have seen it mentioned that there exists the possibility that LiquidCD may someday become a shareware program, which would cost money. This is pure conjecture on my part, but it seems logical that one reason to make the program shareware instead of freeware would be the added value of a legal MPEG encoding license. I have nothing to back up that sentiment – it’s just my gut feeling. But if that were the case, the ability would truly make LiquidCD a great program. It’s already very, very good, but that would put it over the top, in my opinion.
Last, like any good burning program worth its code base, LiquidCD is able to burn image files to disc. The formats LiquidCD is able to burn include .bin and .toc sets, .dmg and .iso, as well as partial support for files created by the Nero Burning ROM and Toast burning programs.
In my experience, LiquidCD has been easy to work with, and has done exactly as I expected. In addition to the features listed above, one last thing that made working with LiquidCD a joy was its integration with iTunes and iPhoto. When burning an Audio CD, the user is given the option of browsing the iTunes library, which makes adding songs a snap, and a similar feature is evident when burning a Photo CD.
If this sounds like something you might be interested in giving a try, I’d highly recommend it. LiquidCD has nearly every feature I would ever use in a burning application, and then some!
