IsoBuster

I like Open Source Freeware.

I'm a huge fan of useful free stuff.

But sometimes--more often than I would like--you actually have to shell out money for a program. And today was one of those days.

Someone had sent me a mini DVD from one of those newfangled "mini DVD camcorder" thingies with really important footage on it. Now, I've cautioned against buying these cameras for a long time--ever since they started coming out, actually--and today I experienced another reason to stay away from them: If you forget to "finalize" the disk, it becomes almost impossible to read. In short, the super easy, straight from camera to DVD player option becomes a massive headache.

I could see data on the bottom of the disk, but all of my computers thought it was blank (Tiger, Vista, XP).


Disk with Data

I got one free program to see that there was some data there, but it couldn't do anything more than report that 244MB were used.

After looking around and reading some reviews, IsoBuster looked like our only hope. And downloading the program proved that it could see the file and claimed to be able to extract it if we would only pay the $30 registration fee.

I bit the bullet and paid.

Ten minutes later I was playing the footage on my desktop and converting it for easier playback.

If you are ever faced with an improperly burned disk and need the footage, IsoBuster may be just the tool you need. And, really, your time is valuable so $30 is likely totally worth it.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor