Nero Burning ROM, commonly called Nero, is an optical disc authoring program from Nero AG. The software is part of the Nero Multimedia Suite but is also available as a stand-alone product. It is used for burning and copying optical media such as CDs, DVDs, and

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

disks. The program also supports the label printing technologies LightScribe and LabelFlash, and can be used to convert audio files into other audio formats.

Name

Nero Burning ROM is a pun in reference to Roman Emperor

Nero Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68) was a Roman emperor and the final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 until his ...

, who was best known for his association in the Great Fire of Rome. The emperor allegedly fiddled while the city of Rome burned. Also, Rome in German is spelled Rom. The software's logo features a burning

Colosseum The Colosseum ( ; , ultimately from Ancient Greek word "kolossos" meaning a large statue or giant) is an Ellipse, elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphi ...

, although this is an anachronism as it was not built until after Nero's death.

Features

Nero Burning ROM is only available for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. A

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

-compatible version was available from 2005 to 2012, but it has since been discontinued. In newer versions, media can be added to compilations via the Nero MediaBrowser. Nero AirBurn, a new feature in Nero 2015, enables users to burn media straight from their mobile devices. The latest version is Nero Burning ROM 2017 released in October 2016 including 4.0 with 256-bit encryption. The software supports the creation of a variety of media formats: * Disk image files * Audio CD discs *

DVD-Video DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVDs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in most of the world in the 2000s. As of 2024, it competes with the high-definition Blu-ray Disc, while both rece ...

discs *

Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of ...

s * AVCHD video discs * Bootable data discs *

ISO The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Me ...

/ UDF data discs * discs Additional functions include: * Printing on discs with LightScribe and LabelFlash technology * Erasing rewritable discs * Copying audio CD tracks in a choice of audio formats onto a hard disk drive * Converting audio files to other audio file formats * Connection to the online music database Gracenote

Image format support

Nero Burning ROM works with a number of optical disc image formats, including the raw uncompressed image using the ISO9660 standard and Nero's proprietary NRG

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

. Depending on the version, additional image formats may be supported. To use non-natively supported formats such as lossless FLAC, Wavpack, and Shorten, additional program modules must be installed. The modules are also known as plug-ins and

codec A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...

s and are usually free, although Nero AG sells some proprietary video and audio plug-ins. Standard CD images created by Nero products have the

filename extension A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (for example, .txt, .mp3, .exe) that indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically d ...

.NRG, but users can also create and burn normal ISO images.

Varieties

Nero Burning ROM is integrated in the Nero Multimedia Suite and is also available as a downloadable standalone product. It is also a part of Nero Essentials – a slimmed-down version of Nero Multimedia Suite – that comes bundled with OEM computers and optical disc writers.

Version history

Nero Burning ROM

Note: Although Nero AG appears to no longer maintain a history of older versions on their website, release notes are archived by several third-party sites.

Nero Linux

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nero Burning Rom 1997 software Optical disc authoring software Shareware Windows CD/DVD writing software Linux CD/DVD writing software Colosseum Cultural depictions of Nero