create CD/DVD image

[farmkid]

Virtualbox can mount CD/DVD images and treat them as an actual disc. But, is it possible to also burn CDs and/or DVDs in the same way? In other words, is it possible to create a virtual drive and burn an image instead of an actual disc?

[towo]

What?

[farmkid]

Sorry, was that not clear enough?

VirtualBox can either mount and .iso image or the host optical drive. To burn a disc, you have to mount the host optical drive, enable passthrough, and then burn to a disc. I'm wondering if there is any way to burn to a virtual drive instead of the host optical drive (similar to mounting an .iso file) so that you end up with a .iso file instead of a disc.

[towo]

Nearly every burning software is able to write a iso-image from data to burn without needing of a real burner.
Has nothing to do with vbox.

[farmkid]

I know that most burning programs can create .iso images. The problem I have is that the one I want to use doesn't.

Here's the deal: There are a couple of songs I want to buy from iTunes. They are available only on iTunes. However, I hate iTunes and I don't have an iPod, so I want to install iTunes, download the songs, convert them to .mp3 so I can actually use them, then get rid of iTunes. To convert the songs to .mp3, I have to burn them to a CD using iTunes, then rip the CD to .mp3. Since the CD is only temporary and will be used only once, I really don't want to waste a CD for this (I'm not sure I even have any CD-Rs laying around any more; I haven't used one in a long time), so I would rather just use an .iso, but iTunes will only burn to a drive, not an image. This would be really simple if Virtualbox could virtualize a CD burner.

[Sasquatch]

Excuse me, but since when do you need iTunes to convert AAC files to MP3? And if you can't afford a rewritable disc for this, then there is little point in asking here for a feature that will cost a hell of a lot more to develop only to create what you can already do with free software like imgburn. Fine, imgburn doesn't provide a drive or anything, but the concept is already explained above.

[farmkid]

Is there another way to convert downloaded iTunes songs to .mp3? I've never tried it before, because as I said, I don't use iTunes, so I've never downloaded anything from it before. My understanding, however, was that songs downloaded from iTunes are protected and can't be converted to another format (or even played, for that matter) by any legal software. From everything I've read about it, burning it to a CD and re-ripping it is the only way. If you know of another legal way to do it, please enlighten me.

I'm not asking for any new features to be added to Virtualbox. I'm just asking if it's already there. At first thought, it seemed to me that there might already be a way to do it. Since it virtualizes everything else, it's not a stretch to think it might virtualize a CD burner as well. I know of a couple of other ways to do it, but they involve getting and installing other programs and are more complicated. I was hoping that CD burner virtualization was already built in and I just couldn't find it and someone could point me in the right direction.

[Sasquatch]

The functionality isn't there and it most likely won't either. If you want to convert your iTunes songs, then Google is your friend. We won't deal with that here, it's off-topic.