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The latest version of Easy Media Creator gets no points for subtlety but a huge thumbs up for sheer value for money.
Over the past few years, Roxio has taken over a number of its rivals and then, ironically, found itself being taken over by DVD specialists Sonic Solutions just a few months ago (although Sonic will continue to use the Roxio brand name, which is well known among PC and Mac users).
Along the way, Roxio gathered up a motley assortment of digital media tools and it has chucked every one of them into this latest version of Easy Media Creator.
Describing Easy Media Creator 7.5 as a software suite is something of an understatement. It's more like buying yourself an entire library of software.
Once you've installed it you'll find almost 20 new programs tucked inside the Programs section of your Start menu. These provide a wide range of tools for creating and editing digital audio, photos, video and DVD, as well as backing up and retrieving data.
To make it a bit easier to sort through all these different programs, Roxio provides you with a program called the 'Home Page', which acts as a kind of browser for all the tools and options that are available within the suite.
The Home Page lists these items in two ways. First, you can browse through a list of tasks arranged into categories, such as Music, Photos, or Video. So the Music category includes tasks such as converting audio CDs into mp3 format or burning your own music onto a blank CD, while the list of Photos tasks includes options such as creating a slideshow or emailing pictures to your friends.
Selecting a particular task will either open the relevant program - such as Photosuite for editing pictures - or will open a wizard linked to that program in order to guide you through the task one step at a time.
This is a useful approach, as it caters to less experienced users who may be a bit confused by the sheer range of programs and features included in the Creator suite.
The Home Page also lists each of the programs within the suite by name, so more experienced users can dive straight in and start working with whatever program they need.
One or two of these programs - such as Backup My PC - are also available separately and have recently been reviewed in PCW. And there's much more to get your teeth into here.
For video work there's the popular Videowave editor (acquired from MGI in a previous round of takeovers), while DVD creation is handled by DVD Builder, based on Sonic's own MyDVD software.
DVD creation has been enhanced in this version, with Roxio claiming speed increases of up to 30 per cent when compressing or copying DVD content.
There's also a new program for converting DivX files into DVD, so you can download video from the internet and put it onto a DVD disc that you can watch on any domestic DVD player.
There are a number of new audio features. The Audio Capture program can now be used to capture audio from the internet and there's an LP and Tape Assistant that can be used to record music from a turntable or tape deck. This also provides useful information on how to connect your audio equipment to your PC.
Finally, there are a few new diagnostic tools for testing the performance of your CD or DVD drive and a copy of Sonic's Cineplayer DVD player.
Roxio's everything-including-the-kitchen-sink approach may not appeal to everyone and there's a good chance you could buy the Creator suite and end up never using most of its features.
But some of the programs in the suite, such as Videowave, were previously sold on their own for more than £50. That makes Easy Media Creator enormously good value and you could still be quids in even if you only use half of the features included here.
System requirements:
- Windows 2000 (Service Pack 4) or XP (Service Pack 1)
- 500MHz processor for audio/video capture or 1.6GHz for DVD creation
- 256MB of Ram
- 1GB hard disk space
- Optional DVD or CD burner
See also:
All Home and Entertainment
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