What Is a Virtual DVD Drive?
A virtual DVD drive is a non-physical drive created by a CD emulator like Virtual Drive, and is used to play DVD images, or virtual DVDs.
Although Windows recognizes a virtual DVD drive as a regular DVD-ROM drive and assigns it a drive letter, a virtual DVD drive operates directly on the hard disk. Usually, the total of virtual DVD drives on one system cannot exceed the number of available drive letters. A virtual DVD can be pre-loaded in a virtual DVD drive for quick launch, or it can be “inserted” by dragging and dropping.
About Virtual DVDs
A virtual DVD is an image file of a DVD: it holds the entire contents of a DVD in electronic format. While virtual DVDs can include music, they’re most often used for video games and disc-based applications. Because virtual DVDs can’t be scratched or broken and are easy to transport, they’re favored by parents with small children and mobile PC gamers. Other benefits include:
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Optimal performance
Virtual DVD-ROMs have playback times up to 200 times faster than physical DVD-ROMs
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Reduced demand on system resources
Virtual DVD eliminate the need for a DVD-ROM drive and extend the charge of laptop batteries
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DVD archiving
Organize your virtual DVDs in a Windows-like library
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Disc backup
Protect your DVDs from loss, theft, and damage by using high-quality disc images instead
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Multiple disc play
Pre-load up to 23 virtual DVD drives and toggle back and forth between games or volumes of a DVD set
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Portability and convenience
Transport your virtual DVDs on a laptop or external hard drive
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Custom virtual DVD creation
Add documentation, multimedia, and images to your virtual DVD and share it over a network
