PowerISO

PowerISO is a compact disc and USB media management application that's fully compatible with the ISO9660 guidelines published by the International Standards Organization. It can process, extract and burn ISO files that represent both traditional CD media as well as DVD and Bluray discs. It can also work with these in a virtual environment by mounting them as though they were physical discs plugged into a desktop computer.

In order to support the widest range of potential configurations, PowerISO works with 32 as well as 64-bit architectures. It's capable of ripping existing audio CDs and storing their data as music files on a hard drive. The software can also convert other types of media to the pulse code modulation standard that CD players expect. Once these are written to a conventional CD-R disc, users will be able to play them in a stereo without the need for any special hardware.

Since PowerISO supports CD-RW discs as well, those who have stereos that can manage rewritable discs can also burn these. Naturally, the software also supports writing flat ISO data structures to discs, so you can create backups on optical media that aren't intended for use with stereo audio systems. It's also a great choice for those who want to explore ISOs created by other organizations.

The app's integrated file manager can extract, edit and compress ISO archives. It's also capable of encrypting them to some degree as well as mark them read-only so that they can't be inadvertently altered at a later date. Splitting ISO files is also possible, which is useful for those who want to spread an existing BD-ROM over several DVD or CD-ROM discs. Since there's a massive difference in the amount of data that these various formats can hold, having the ability to split them is extremely useful. It's also useful for those who want to share a big archive over the web and need to send it out in smaller chunks.

Processing more esoteric formats, like bin/cue pairs, is possible though users will probably want to know the right configuration settings to try before they start testing out all of these advanced features. That being said, PowerISO's simple user interface makes it easy once you get used to the admittedly terse labels.

Audio support for MP3, FLAC and WMA files is baked into the program itself so you won't have to worry about converting between all the different files you might end up running into. It also offers support for several more esoteric formats, which is perhaps good news for those working with older audio files.

Whether you need it for raw data or stereo sound, you'll find that PowerISO has a surfeit of professional-grade tools.

Pros

• Rips and burns audio CDs
• Manages both ISO files and bin/cue pairs
• Generates bootable USB devices
• Works with both 32 and 64-bit machines

Cons

• Parsing some ISO files can take a long time
• UI elements aren't labeled well