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Duplicating CDs/DVDs in Mac OS X

September 30, 2006

When my dad asked me to duplicate a video CD, I decided I’d try to get it done on my new Mac (to, you know, get wow-ed by how easy it is on a Mac compared to the old way I used to do things on Windows). As it turns out, I was rather disappointed by the default Mac OS X burning functionality provided via Finder and Disk Utility, though I’d say it’s still way ahead of the default disc burning in Windows XP. Burn folders? Dig them. Creating and customizing .dmg files (disk images) and then burning them? Love the UNIX toolbox-y goodness of how all this is done in Disk Utility.app. Duplicating CDs or DVDs? Not that great.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I couldn’t get the “create image from CD, then burn the image” method to work with Disk Utility - it created a .dmg file without my files in it and I didn’t burn it because I didn’t want to risk getting a coaster.

I asked a couple of Mac users and they didn’t know how to duplicate CDs easily as well (one of them copied the files to disc and then burn them onto the blank disc). Some Googling turned up this thread which, while rather old, seems to show that there’s no easy way to duplicate a disc with Mac OS X.

Hmm, this just feels wrong to me, or more likely, Apple decided to intentionally leave disc duplication out (probably for digital rights issues or the like). I’m really missing the functionaliy that Nero provides with an easy “Duplicate disc” function. Does anyone know how to easily duplicate a disc in Mac OS X or can recommend a good application that does so?

Posted by Chu Yeow at September 30, 2006 SGT | Permalink | | Category: Mac, Operating Systems

5 Comments & TrackBacks ()

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Martey's Gravatar

Would burning the CD as a CD/DVD master in Disk Utility work? See http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42724

Posted by: Martey on September 29, 2006 6pm

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Dave M.'s Gravatar

Does Windows come with a way of “copying” a CD out of the box? I don’t remember a utility that did that.

There are a lot of programs out there for both platforms that will do this. There is a new app coming for the Mac that will do this by the same people that made AppZapper. It’s called Disco. It’s going to be out in closed beta soon.

There is also Toast and there is a free program called Burn (http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net).

Posted by: Dave M. on September 29, 2006 6pm

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Chu Yeow's Gravatar

Martey: That’s what I did actually, but it gave me a weirdly small .dmg. I very probably was doing something wrong.

Dave: Yeah Windows didn’t have duplication out of the box, but I did have Nero Express on it which really made it easy to duplicate discs and burn disc images. I probably sounded unfair but I wasn’t really trying to compare Mac OS X with Windows XP’s built-in disc burning functionality. In that respect, Mac OS X wins hands down in my opinion.

Rather, I was looking for a simple way to duplicate discs on a Mac, whether it is built into Mac OS X or a 3rd party software.

Posted by: Chu Yeow on September 30, 2006 6pm

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Otterman's Gravatar

How aboutBurn?

Posted by: Otterman on November 1, 2006 8am

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Gisele's Gravatar

Disk utility http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42724 works for me, but i’ve also read that you can rip even origial DVDs using Mac the ripper and then clone de DVD using Disk Utility in folder Applications/Utilities.
Make sure you check CD/DVD option in dropdown menu before SAVING the image.

If software Burn do not work try Toast.
Gisele

Posted by: Gisele on April 2, 2008 12pm

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