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Roxio Easy Media Creator 2009 (PC) | 
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| From: Roxio
Category: Software
List Price: £49.99
Buy New: £31.99
You Save: £18.00 (36%)
New (2) from £31.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  34 reviews
Sales Rank: 19
Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows 2000, Windows Xp, Windows Vista Home Basic
Media: CD-ROM
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.5 x 1.3
MPN: 242010UK
UPC: 815227009442
EAN: 0815227009442
ASIN: B001CZJG7K
Release Date: September 12, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 29 more reviews...
Great for burning cd's and dvd's November 21, 2008
Im not sure whats changed in the last couple of years but I love this product especially when it comes to burning cd's and dvd's my old program used to take around 11 min using Roxio it takes less than 5 it also supports divx which is great. The photo slide show is great fun too, allowing you to add a music track to a bunch of photos and adjust the playback depending on how fast you want to view each photo. Creating a home made video is easy as well, surprising easier to use than Microsoft movie maker and with the added functions.
 Not bad for everyday use, but not for advanced users November 20, 2008
I haven't used everything included in this package: I don't have a video camera, or digital still camera. I have burned a DVD, a CD, a data disc and ripped a CD. It performed these tasks capably enough. However, there aren't the options for tweaking such as you get with Nero (and possible the luxury version of this). If you want to do something out of the mundane then you're a bit stuffed. However, for most users, this shouldn't present too big a problem. I only missed the advanced features because I'm used to having them, not because I particularly need them. In burning a DVD and ripping a CD, it gave me enough scope to do exactly what I wanted, although this was not a intuitive as it might have been; involving a bit of fiddling (but I never read instruction manuals, being male).
There may be a stability issue as it failed on me a couple of times, but it could be my PC which is in dire need of an upgrade.
So if you want an all-singing, all-dancing, washes-whiter type of application check out the advanced version of this, or Nero. If you want a relatively straightforward app, then this will most likely suit you quite well. I would like to give it 3.5 stars or 70% but as we only get a choice of five, three it is.
 Am I missing something... ? November 20, 2008
I've not managed to get this to burn a single disk yet! I have a lot of movies and things on my laptop which I would love to transfer in to an attractive DVD format. However, whilst the Roxio Media Creator is fairly Easy to use, with big buttons indicating the most common tasks, the fact of the matter is that there is something wrong with the compression of files.
For instance, I tried to transfer 11 x 350MB (approx) files on to a disc and it informed me that I had exceeded the space on the disk by about 2GB! Yet I managed to get the same amount of data on to the same disk using the Divx player/burner software which you can download off the web for free, with space on the disk to spare! Though without the nice graphics on a menu page.
The help software is limited and poorly organised, and the interface is quite cluttered and fiddly (e.g. when trying to type in and arrange file names for a menu screen).
I was really looking forward to using this product, especially as I had read it could make an high def disk using a standard DVD burner, but until I figure out why its saying the disk is full when it isn't, i shall be relying on my tried-and-tested software to do the job of making media DVDs. Disappointing. If I ever figure it out, I'll come back and edit this.
A great programme with some huge gaps November 19, 2008
I've been looking for while now something that could replace the plethora of media players, video editors, the sound mixers and the hundreds of smaller audiovisual utilities that clutter my hard disk. It was therefore with a certain anticipation that I opened the box and started to install it.
Installation
I've had my windows XP machine up and running for while now, and it is used exclusively for video editing and audio mixing. The first issue I had, was the failure of.net 3.5 to install. The puzzling thing is that the Roxio installer thought that the application was correctly installed and told me so. I quickly realised when no icons appeared that in fact it had lied to me, and I started to look at the underlying causes. It didn't take me long to figure out that it was Microsoft.net 3.5 and not actually Roxio that was at fault. Repeated tries failed to produce any results (and I know what I'm doing in this area, so God help anyone who is just trying to use the PC). Frustrated, I reinstalled Windows XP, and Roxio installed without hitch.
The main interface
The main screen is well laid out. On the homepage there are lists of frequent tasks such as ripping, copying discs, backing up files, converting, and browsing/managing your media files. There are then a set of tabs split the not inconsiderable functionality of this package into logical groups. The data tab contains options for burning data discs, copying discs, backup and restore. The video movies tab contains everything you need to capture, edit and burn your movies. There is also a section to create professional DVDs, and functionality to play movies on your PC or laptop. The music audio tab contains everything from ripping the CDs to digitising LPs and tapes to capturing audio directly from your soundcard inputs. The photos have as you may already guess as options to import, edit and enhance your photos as well as utilities to create slideshows, labels and panoramas.
Data tab
This does what it says on the tin. Very simple to use, and I haven't created a bad disk yet. Not sure whether it's the quality of my CDs/DVDs or the quality of the software. I suspect the latter. So full marks here.
Video tab
Capturing and then editing video was very easy to do. I can even pull in existing video extremely easily assemble everything into storyboard and then burn the whole thing onto a DVD or into a format of my choosing.
However, existing DVDs that I had created previously, and wanted to convert into DivX, proved to be impossible. It seems it is only possible to create another DVD from an existing DVD (not convert it). If you already have video files, you can use the drag-and-drop convert facility to change the format of your video file. If you have it in VOB (standard DVD) format, you reduced to first using something like DivX author. This is pretty disappointing as I have many home movies burnt as standard DVDs. I guess my dream of getting rid of all the other utilities ends right here!
Music audio tab
The ripping and capture facilities are great. But the thing that I was hoping for, was an adequate media player that would replace both iTunes and Windows media player. Although I like Windows media player, it doesn't sync to the iPod and that is a problem. Roxio however syncs to the iPod and a huge amount of other devices but for some very strange reason, they omit to include a track order field, so all the tracks are in either alphabetic or some other random order which makes the media player completely useless. Needless to say, I'm extremely disappointed. There is so much functionality in this package, so why could they not have put a track number into their media player.
Another issue was that when the media manager was looking for existing music on my hard disk, it crashed a couple times. The service runs in the background and keeps on monitoring your music directories, and once it had indexed/found all my existing music there was no further problem.
Photos
The photo Suite is quite good, and allows you as an occasional photo editor, to quickly and simply spruce up your photos. I suspect that people who are into this in a big way will still need something like photo shop, but for me this is the perfect blend of power and simplicity. You can probably guess I really never came to grips with photo shop.
Overall impression
The overall impression is of a very capable package with a couple of very large gaps. Both the video converting and the lack of a track number -- both relatively simple add-ons -- make Roxio creator less useful than it should be. I wasn't able to get rid of either iTunes or Windows media player because of this, and I still need another converter because they forgot to include DVDs in their conversion programme. Maybe the next version will have these features. I look forward to seeing this next version as I think Roxio creator could kill a lot of the competition with just a little more attention to detail.
PS. I couldn't decide between 3 or 4 stars, but in the end, because I still need all mu other utilities, it gets 3.
Slow to install, but useful collection when you eventually get there! November 19, 2008
Like other reviewers, I found this product incredibly slow to load on my Windows XP laptop, even though my machine more than matched the minimum specification on the box. However, there is a lot to this program which goes some way towards justifying the snail-pace installation. This really is a suite of programs rather than just one and although you'll find much of what it can do elsewhere, there is some appeal to having everything accessible from one easy to navigate central point. Printed instructions are pretty minimal, but it is fairly intuitive to work out how to do what you want to do. You can do all the usual media-related tasks, photo editing, (including batch editing rather than just individual shots), video editing, cd and dvd creation (including Blu-Ray although I've had no need for this yet). Of particular use, is the specific function to rip CDs to make audio books - regular CD ripping makes a bit of a hash of this. I've also found the tools for converting video and audio files to different formats very useful and they work well. A couple of other features are worth highlighting - the ability to edit the ID3 tags on your MP3s (if your tags aren't right, your player will get all huffy with you!) and also the audio recorder which means you can record streaming audio from the internet.
There is a danger with a product like this that it could be a 'jack of all trades, master of none' but it is pretty good in almost all areas. You will find a better photo editor, music manager etc, but at this price for these things and a huge amount more, I'd say this is a very good buy and would recommend it. I've certainly had a lot of fun with it, and I'm sure I haven't explored all that this package can do yet.
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