Regardless of the industry push towards cloud computing for new approaches to software distribution, backing up data and publishing media (music, videos, audio) many computers still come with optical drives to do a wide range of task and activities such as listening to music, backing up personal files and settings, installing programs or watching a movie there’s still a place for the CD and DVD.

Today, we are going to be looking at using the Optical Recording capabilities built into Windows 7.

Burning a CD or DVD in Windows 7 can mean many things, these include:

• Burning a movie created in Windows Live Movie Maker
• Burning an audio CD created in Windows Media Player
• Backing up personal files and settings using Backup and Restore
• Burning individual files using the Burning Wizard through Windows Explorer.

In this article, we are going to look at some of these task and how to accomplish them.

Burning individual files using the Burning wizard through Windows Explorer.

Before the popularity of thumb drives the most affordable and efficient way to backup files and shuttle them from computer to computer was to use a CD-RW (Compact Disc Re-writable). These days you see almost everybody with a thumb drive hanging around their neck or a key chain. If you still prefer optical media, here is how you can use it.

Using a blank CD-RW disk to backup files.

Preparing the Disc

To backup files to a CD or DVD, you will need a blank DVD-RW or a CD-RW (used or unused). You can use standard blank DVD or CD but understand it’s for one time use only. Insert the disk into your optical drive. Depending on how you configured your computer, the Auto Play dialog should automatically appear on screen with a list of Task you can accomplish. If not, proceed to click Start > Computer > and double click the optical drive in which the disk is inserted.

This will launch the Burn a Disc wizard which present a couple of options for how you can use the the disc. The first thing you need to do is give the disc a name.

You have two ways of using the disc, first Like a USB flash drive, which means, drag and drop files into the disk, you can open and edit files and click save in your favorite programs, whether it is Microsoft Word or Windows Media Player and it automatically writes the information to the disc. This is called a Live File System.

The second option, With a CD/DVD player means files will be burnt one time only to the disk and cannot be edited or removed. In my case, I plan to use my CD-RW to backup important files and use with different computers running different versions of Windows such as Windows XP and Vista.

After selecting Like a USB flash drive, click Next

The drive will prompt you to format the disk to prepare for use. Formatting can take some time depending on the type of media, especially if it’s a blank DVD. If you have any programs using the disk, please close them.

Formatting CD-RW disk.

Once you have done this, you will notice that the CD drive is now open and ready for you to drag files into it. The next step is to locate where your files are that you would like to add to the disc.

This is a good opportunity to take advantage of the window management capabilities built into Windows 7 by snapping both windows to the opposite sides of the screen so you can efficiently browse and drag files over to the disc burning window. Learn more here.

So we have located our files, the next step is to simply drag and drop the files into the window. Here you can see I am dragging and dropping a few photos, please note, I am not limited by the type of content. I can drag and drop a mixture of documents, audio files, videos and pictures.  If you do encounter problems trying to drag files into the disk, you can try the following:

Right click the Files or Folder, select Send to > and click the name of the disk listed in the submenu.

Files being coped to disk

That’s it, your files have been added to the disk. You can now use the disk on any computer running Windows XP or Vista view and copy files just the same. See below:

Backing up personal files and settings using Backup and Restore

In a previous Notebooks.com article we looked at using System Image to back up our Windows 7 installation to an external hard disk. In addition to this method of backing up your computer, Windows 7 includes standard backup which allows you to backup the contents of your User folder such as Documents, Music, Pictures Videos etc.

To start the backup, insert your CD or DVD blank disc.

If you have the Auto Play wizard enabled, you can click the Backup and Restore Center option.

or if you don’t…

Click Start, type: Backup

Hit Enter on your keyboard

If you don’t see the option to backup to optical media, click Change Settings. Follow the on screen wizard and select your optical drive, then click Next.

Once the backup wizard starts, select the destination, in this case, my optical drive is displayed DVD RW Drive (D:). Also displayed is information about how much Free Space is available and the total size of the disk. My disk has a reasonable amount of free space, so I will go with this destination since I won’t be backing up too many files to it. If you are backing up a lot of files, it’s recommended you use an external hard disk.

The next page in our wizard ask us what we would like to backup. Letting Windows choose might not be effective since it will be backing up a number of locations and folders which might actually exceed the size of our backup location. So, I will select ‘Let me choose’ option. I can individually choose libraries and folders.

In this section of the backup wizard, a folder tree of all my folders and libraries are displayed. My intention is not to backup everything, just the most important folders and locations since I am limited by the storage capacity of my CD.

As you can see, the Backup wizard conveniently displays hidden locations, which is just what I was looking for. This is good, since what I would like to backup is my Microsoft Outlook Personal Folder files.

So I have selected the locations I want to have backed up, click Next.

Review the Items you are backing up. If you would like to add additional folders or locations, click the Back button and make your changes. If everything is good to go, click Save settings and exit.

Backup in progress.

When you are ready to restore your backup, just reopen Backup and Restore and click the link under Restore to ‘Restore all users files’ and follow the on screen instructions.

Burning an audio CD created in Windows Media Player

Probably one of the most popular and prolific activities of the early to mid 2000’s. Rip and Burn as some would call it made a fun way to create your own mix CD’s with your favorite songs. There were some troubles involved with ripping and burning music CDs due to the popularity of online file sharing, but ripping your music to your hard disk had, and has, it’s legitimate purposes. Of course this was before the popularity of MP3 Players like iPod or Smart Phones with enough storage capacity or even affordability in comparison to a 1 cent CD Blank.

With the release of Windows XP, Microsoft built in CD Burning as a part of the operating system. One of the major beneficiaries was Windows Media Player which allows you to create and burn your own Music Playlist and we are going to take a look at doing that.

Burning a audio CD

First thing we need to is launch Windows Media Player.

Go to the Burn tab

In the Music Library, browse then drag drop into the Burn Playlist pane on the right and repeat the steps until you are satisfied with the amount of songs you have.

You can also use the progress bar in the Burn Pane to indicate how much space you have left to add songs to a typical 80 min CD.

I find the most convenient way to burn a CD in Windows Media Player is to simply create a Playlist. It’s quick and easy, just click the Create playlist button on the command bar and use the same method of dragging and dropping songs  in Play Pane. Once you are done click Save List.

Since I already have a playlist created of songs I would like to burn, all I need to do is, right click it, select Add to > Burn List

Automatically, my songs are added and are ready to be burned. I can edit the list if I want by dragging around tracks in any desired order.

I can click the Burn Options button and access additional options.

I suggest you check out the More burn options tab which displays settings for burning audio discs. I personally recommend you burn your CD’s at the lowest possible for best results. You can also adjust options whether you want volume leveling for consistency across tracks. You can also select if you want a short pause between your tracks too.

Once you are ready, just click the Start burn button to begin burning the audio disc.

You can monitor the progress of your CD while it burns or do something else in the mean time. Once the disc has been burnt, it will be automatically ejected.

Burning a movie created in Windows Live Movie Maker

So for we have explored three of the options available for working with optical media in Windows. The last one we are going to look at deals with video. With the release of Windows Live Wave 3 and Windows 7, Microsoft decoupled it’s free video editing software Windows Movie Maker and renamed it Windows Live Movie Maker in addition to bundling it with it’s free set of programs and services called Windows Live Essentials.

Windows Live Movie Maker makes convenient to create quick movies you can share with family and friends through differenet mediums, whether it’s by publishing to a online video service such as YouTube, by email using Windows Live Mail or traditional means such as a DVD or CD.

Here you can see a movie I have already edited and I am now ready to burn to DVD. To do this, click the Save Movie In in the Share group and click  Burn a DVD.

Give the file a name and this will prepare the video for burning using the Windows Media Video File format.

Saving Movie

After the Movie is saved, it will automatically launch Windows DVD Maker and the movie file to list of items to be burnt. If would like to add other media, click the Add Item button on the command bar.

If you click the Options link, you can make adjustments to how DVD is played back, the aspect ratio for how it will look on screen and the supported format. Just like media player, you can adjust the speed at which it is burnt. I also recommend burning at the lowest speed for best reliability. Click Next

Next you can customize the look of the DVD Menu. DVD Maker includes a number of themes to choose from. You can make further changes by clicking the Customize menu and Preview your changes.

Once you have made your adjustments, click the Burn button.

It’s 2010, the role of the optical drive is beginning to fade, but there is still a lot of life left in it. It remains a great way to backup files, share information and media. Why not explore some of these available options already built into Windows 7.

How to burn a CD or DVD in Windows 7 for Backing Up, Music CDs and Movies is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

I have had a while now to experience some of the improved features in Windows 7 more intimately. One of my favorite past times on the PC of course is listening to music. I would describe my collection as mostly Popular music with numerous Rhythm and Blues selections. I do listen Rock and Alternative but not too aggressively. Windows Media Player 12 is not a drastic departure from version 11, it adds nice enhancements that make’s engaging with your music more fun. Lets take a look:

Windows Media Player 12 features cool interface

The most noticeable difference when you first launch Media Player 12 is the changes to how the UI is now laid out. But before we go into that, lets talk about some of the initial steps to start getting ready:

Setup:

Windows Media Player still comes bundled in Windows, 7. So unlike some applications that were once bundled with the OS but are now a part of the Windows Live Essentials suite, you don’t have to download it. Just like version 11 when you launch the executable for the first time you have a choice between doing a ‘Express’ or ‘Custom’ setup. Of course, I would like to see if there are any new changes, so lets go with the Custom Settings.

Most of the common options you are accustom to seeing during this portion of setup are there, the first change I see is the option to add the Media Player 12 executable to your desktop, which I see a lot of persons do, so looks like a make sense option. Next you can choose to make Media Player your default music or video Player or choose specific file types you would like it to play. Media Player 12 supports numerous formats now, I notice songs that I had to resort to playing in iTunes now play just fine in Media Player eg. MP3 Format Sound and the proprietary AAC.

There are many new supported codec’s making WMP 12 a definite choice for Media.

After you have completed the setup process, you are greeted by the media player, which takes you immediately to the music library. Based on my observations, Media Player adapts a combination of Windows Explorer bread crumb menus which help you to easily back track path ways throughout a folder hierarchy but in this case your music library locations. There is also separation between task and locations as evident by the location arrangements and features like ‘Play’, ‘Burn’ and ‘Sync’ which are now situated on the far right of the interface. The familiar back and forward buttons are still there and makes it easy to move between different areas of the interface.

Below these options you will find a second toolbar which display menus for Organizing, Streaming, creating a playlist, Library Mode and searching in addition to Help. The Navigation Pane situated on the right of the interface is revamped with a new addition. In Media Player 12 Library links such as Year, Rating, Songs are now a part of the library table. You can still find Navigation Pane options under Organize > Customize Navigation Pane. The Recently Added link has been removed. Two new library links Video and Pictures are available providing a central location to truly view all your media. Today’s Portable Players are complex media devices that not only store music and videos, but also photos and those are just two more of the great things users can look forward to in this release.

Lets look a little closer at the different components and within their locations:

Play tab – a combination of ‘Now Playing’ (which exist now only as a mini playing mode – discussed later) with Playlist wrapped into one. Its quite convenient and provides the option of easily navigating back and forth between your custom playlist while also viewing your main library of music. I wish there was a separator to make it easier to identify different albums from the artiste, also, I would have liked to see an option for one song within that active playlist to have the option of Repeat when selected though, instead playing over the entire playlist or having the user manually choose to play over that particular song by double clicking.

Burn tab – provides the same functionality as previous versions without the need to leave your music library. Some nice options are available such as Eject Disc After Burning, Apply Volume Leveling Across Tracks on Audio CDs and Name Disk (not checked by default).

Sync tab – provides synchronization capabilities for your portable player. I was not able to accurately test this since I do not own a MP3 player at this time, but similar options available in prior versions are just the same in this release.

The new mini playing mode, also works for video clips and movies.

If you find activated Tabs distracting, you can easily hide them by clicking the Tab once which will show the entire library. Organization of music in Media Player 12 has been greatly enhanced and the new layout of songs in the library provides a more simplified, yet detailed approach to interacting with your collections. I do find it frustrating that certain areas still cannot be customized, for instance, the Album art column cannot be unchecked, I would like to use that space for another column such as Date Added or Play Count.

One of the nice things I like about playing songs from my personal ripped collection of albums, when I hover the mouse pointer over the Album art in the ‘Play’ tab, it does not display buy. I found that annoying in Media Player 11, I already have the album on my hard disk, why is it suggesting that I purchase the album, a more neutral ‘shop’ link is displayed which could suggest buying more music from that artiste. You can also preview tracks in your library. You might ask, how different is this from simply double clicking a track and listening to it for a few seconds. When you hover a track and click the preview song link on the floating balloon, you will hear the song for approximately 15 seconds, the sweet part is, when you have heard enough, you simply move the pointer away from the floating balloon which will stop playing the song. The Windows Media Player Team could have made it even more innovative by simply hovering over the preview button without any manual clicking.

Windows Media Player becomes a true media player, you can also play slideshows.

Working with Management

Options once available under hidden drop down menus for each button of the player interface in Media Player 11 (Now Playing, Library etc) are now clearly exposed through Organize, Share and New Playlist.

Organize – Features menus for managing your library content, whether its Pictures, videos or Recorded TV. You can customize and arrange your library views by checking or un-checking columns in addition to customizing the Navigation Pane displaying drop down menus and access entire options for Media Player 12.

Stream

A new Stream Menu provides quick access to sharing your media and configuring options for how you can access it from other PC’s, some of the new options include:

• Set up your home PC so you can access your media libraries while away from home
• Allow other Windows 7 PCs and devices to push media to your Player and control it
• Quickly authorize all home PCs and devices to access your media collection

‘Play To’ allows playing media to be streamed from other shared media libraries within Windows Media Player, Windows 7 can now send media to be played on other Windows 7 PCs and DLNA-certified digital media renderers. With Play To,” you can browse or search from within Windows Media Player or Windows Explorer to find your desired media, and then choose where you want it to be played.

A versatile remote control window is presented for each Play To” session, providing you with the ability to control the entire experience. Play To” is available for both local media libraries and for shared media libraries. If you would like to send media from one Windows 7 PC to another, choose Allow remote control of my Player” from the Windows Media Player Stream” menu on the receiving PC. This will cause Windows Media Player to be discovered in the Play To” menu of other Windows 7 PCs on the same network.

Create Playlist – has its own dedicated menu which allows you to quickly create new custom playlist of your favorite content. There is also a sub menu for a New Auto Playlist which is a playlist that changes automatically according to criteria you have specified.

Performance and Quality

Media Player 12 is faster based on my testing, songs instantly play when double clicked in the library. To reduce the waiting time to launch full media player when you might only want to play an album or a few songs, there is a Mini Player mode called Now Playing Mode. This convenient setup instantly opens when you launch a song from an Explorer for instance (by default), immediately your music begins playing, no waiting, no hitching and no glitches. Media Players familiar Now Playing tools are situated here with visualization effects (that I think needs to be updated) and album art in the visualization similar to ‘mediaviz’ that was released for Media Player 10. Its quite nice and makes it more fun playing songs from a folder when you are not particularly interested with working the full media player library. The Mini-Player itself is resizable and intelligent in doing so, it knows when to show certain player controls and reveals more when it resized to a larger size. If you want to go back to the full Media Player, simply click the ‘Library Mode’ button on the player controls. I would have liked to see an option to hide the window border though, to give it a floating appearance. I still would like the option of turning it off and go directly to full library whenever a song is double clicked from Explorer although you can easily switch Library mode from the player controls, it’s just the extra step I would like to get out of the way.

Quality is very good, audio comes back pumping and clear to the listeners ears. This is something I have noticed since version 11, but I think it has more to do with the improvements to Audio in Windows 7/Vista. Since audio sounds puny when played in Windows XP I get a much richer experience on both Vista and 7. I imported 5.4 GBs of music (which is significantly small compared to some libraries), but there were no problems doing so and all my tracks were recognized along with album art. What I notice about miscellaneous tracks in a folder that the meta data such as song information and album art in particular needs to be downloaded again regardless its there hidden. There is also a mis-match of album art for different songs and artiste – kinda funny seeing Bill Haley’s Jingle Bell Rock represented by Shanice Wilson’s Greatest Hits.

You can enjoy your videos and movies in a number of cool ways from full screen to mini.

Watching Video

Watching movies is a favorite activity in Windows Media Player. Version 12 adds some improvements such as automatically going into full screen mode when you insert a DVD. There is also support for the new Mini-mode which looks lovely. From a technical point of view, Media Player 12 supports new video codec’s which were once available through Third party vendors, some include: MPEG-4, 3GPP standards, H.264 video, DivX and xVid. This of course delivers a richer playback experience for the consumer, which results in less disappointment, something which was true of Media Player 11. Often you would download some particular video just find out the correct codec is not installed to view it.

Changes and some missing options:

• Cannot play movies in the Library interface of Media Player 12.
• I cannot find a way to get Media Player 12 to open up in full screen mode when I play a media file, it always starts up in preview mode first – I still love preview mode though.
• Advanced Tag Editor isn’t included in Media Player. Microsoft says editing media information in the details pane of the Player Library allows you perform some of the tasks once available in Advanced Tag Editor.

Overall, Windows Media Player 12 looks like a solid release that will surely keep loyal users happy. Its fast, great design and user interface make it great application that I will continue to turn to for my media. The ability to now work with photos in addition to video is just a great way of defining WMP 12 as a true media player.

Playing with Windows Media Player 12 is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.