Browse through the average disc authoring suite and you'll find, well, plenty of excess baggage: video and audio file editors, a media player, backup program, data recovery tool, label designer, and more. If you need and will use all these extras, then they're plainly a very good thing. But if you don't, if you're wondering why hundreds of megabytes of hard drive space have disappeared, when all you want to do is burn a few CDs and DVDs occasionally, then it may be time to look elsewhere. And we have the ideal replacement package in mind.

Ashampoo Burning Studio 2008 takes a very different approach to disc authoring. It doesn't weigh down your system with unnecessary extras. There's no complicated interface to navigate, no technical options that you'll never use. But don't think that makes it in any way limited - the program still delivers the core functionality you need.

When creating an audio disc, for instance, Ashampoo Burning Studio 2008 accepts files in MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC and WAV formats. It's able to normalise the volume of your tracks, and works with CDs, DVDs or Blu-ray discs. And the program can rip CD tracks directly to MP3 and save the results on your hard drive, too.

Ashampoo Burning Studio 2008 also includes several functions to help you create and burn disc images (ISO, CUE/BIN and ASHDISC formats are supported). And advanced features like a choice of disc file system to use, and the ability to make a disc bootable (if you have a boot image) are there, if you need them. They just won't get in your way the rest of the time, which makes this program one of the quickest, easiest disc authoring packages around.

Move to Ashampoo Burning Studio 7 and you'll get a VCD/ SVCD/ Video DVD creator, which accepts all the common video formats, then burns a disc using your choice of menu and navigation system. And you also get a powerful backup tool for creating password-protected, compressed archives onto CDs, DVDs or Blu-ray discs. The standard list price for all this is £19.99, but as a registered owner of Ashampoo Burning Studio 2008 you get a generous 50% discount, and need pay only £9.99. Click Internet > Upgrade to Ashampoo Burning Studio 7 to order.