Nero does digitally extract and does everything in the digital domain. It is one reason we use it. As to the options--you are right there are many. I have been fortunate enough to have other experts that know much more than I do about CD drives and computers determine what works best for our purposes. I am certain I do not even know what ALL the options are. I can tell you that we do burn at slow speeds and do not select any of the processing (such as anti-jitter). Beyond that, I can not recall all the settings we use.