How to find software for LTH Blu-ray burning

These 25-gigabyte disks need modern software for burning, as well as updated Blu-ray burners.

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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

How to find software for LTH Blu-ray burning

May 30, 2010

By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2010, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2010, The Post-Standard

   Last week I celebrated the dawn of a new era in cheap high-density disk recording -- the arrival of blank Blu-ray disks using LTH technology that are selling for less than $2 apiece.
   These 25-gigabyte disks need appropriately modern software for burning, as well as updated Blu-ray burners. Most BR burners you buy today will be able to handle the new disks, but you'll have to update the firmware (software inside the burner) for older ones. (Some older ones can't be updated. See last week's column for instructions.)
   I've been using two outstanding programs for all my LTH disk burning:
      ImgBurn for all versions of Windows, free from www.imgburn.com.
      Toast Titanium 10 for the Mac, $79.99 after a rebate, at www.roxio.com/enu/products/toast. You'll also need a $19.99 add-on for Toast called the "Toast 10 High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-in" from www.roxio.com/enu/products/toast/plugin/overview.html. (I wasn't able to find a freeware program for the Mac that could handle LTH disks.)
   Both programs work well for burning CDs and DVDs as well as LTH and other kinds of Blu-ray disks.
   The freeware ImgBurn software is stunning. I used it under Windows 7, but the program can run on any version of Windows from Windows 95 on up.
   I can't imagine any reason a Windows user would want to buy any disk-burning software after trying ImgBurn. It's that good.
   Toast 10 Titanium is the long-time leader in Mac disk burning. It worked flawlessly. Back in the mid-'90s, when Windows 95's instability made PCs untrustworthy for disk burning, I knew many PC users who bought Macs just to be able to burn disks reliably using Toast.