Roxio Easy CD 6 is Hard to Love
Written: Jul 15 '03 (Updated Apr 22 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Has some of the same features as version 5
Cons: DVD burning/authoring
The Bottom Line: I gave two stars because of my disappointment with the DVD Builder. The other features are pretty cool.
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| scapp70's Full Review: Roxio Easy CD & DVD Creator Platinum 6 Full Versio... |
I am a huge fan of Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum Edition. This software truly makes everything easy. I used to make VCDs with such ease. The Sound Editor would allow me to manipulate WAV files by editing, fading, cross-fading. Needless to say I was very excited to purchase Easy CD Creator 6 Platinum.
Although my excitement was peeked, I waited almost a year before I went ahead and purchased it. Since I was already an avid VCD burner, I couldn't wait for the possibilities of DVD burning. But alas, my computer did not have a DVD burner. So when I purchased a very cool Gateway XP Media Center computer, I was ready for everything.
One day I saw that Roxio was offering the Easy CD Creator for $59.99 plus tax for the downloadable version from the official Roxio website. So towards the end of June I went ahead and downloaded it. I was surprised that it took so long to download and install for my computer, since I have a cable connection and a very fast computer. It took about 40 minutes.
Well, I made a CD first. It went off without a hitch of course. It also had a cool feature that was not present in the Easy CD Creator 5. Although it looks similar to the ECDC5, it had a tool bar called project. This toolbar features options for what kind of disc you wish to make. The first is data for just backing up files, or computer programs. The next is music which also has a drop down menu that asks you if you wish to make a regular music CD, or an MP3 player CD. The third is Other which obviously has the drop down menu which asks:
Enhanced CD
Mixed Mode CD
Bootable Disc (which has the option of burning to two types of floppies, or to hard disc.
Most of these features were available on ECDC5 but not all in one convenient place like this.
The PhotoSuite was very attractive and looks like it would be the choice for me. I am a huge fan of Microsoft Picture It, and this photo editing and storing program is right up there with the ease and options it offers. It is very easy to manipulate the photo and store. What the PhotoSuite also offers that Microsoft Picture It does not are the props that you can include in the picture. It makes it very fun.
The Audio Central that is here in ECDC6 is not as easy as the one available in ECDC5. As far as cleaning up the music files or adjusting the EQ, I cannot find it. What Audio Central looks like it basically wants me to use it as a media library. But, I am very happy with my Real One media library and how it categorizes my huge collection.
Disc Copier has the basic and expected features that are the same as the ECDC5, except now we have the option of copying from a DVD or to a DVD. I don't think it will successfully copy store bought DVDs since they are supposed to be copy protected. I did not waste a DVD to find out either. These blank DVDs a little more expensive than the blank CDs, so it's very irritating to waste three DVDs on this next feature.
DVD Builder is the main reason I upgraded. I had almost everything else in ECDC5, or in Microsoft Picture It 2, or Real One. So this is it baby.
Now maybe you are thinking that since I bought a new computer with DVD burners included, they must have given me DVD burner software. They did. They gave me Pinnacle Studio 8 that won't capture, and won't burn to disc. I could build a nice looking DVD, but just to keep it in MPEG-2 form on the computer.
So I thought, "I love Roxio, it's got to work, and it has to be easy." Well, let's talk about this.
First after working with Pinnacle Studio 8 first, I noticed that Roxio did not have all of the options I had expected. The menus that I make on Roxio are very limited. I was very disappointed with that. You know when you pop in a real DVD, and you have the chapters that you can skip to, or just view them in scene selection. Well, we cannot add chapters in this sense. It goes on the disc as a different movie, so if in the menu you choose what scene to watch it will only play that chapter and not the continuous movie. So making chapters on your menu is pointless.
I had contacted Roxio tech for these three troubles that I had. I told them that when I capture from my video card, it only appears in black and white. When I use my Win TV software to capture, it is in color, but Roxio will not capture in color from this same card. They had no idea how to fix it, but I figured it out eventually. I was capturing from my VCR, and I did not hook it into my capture card with an S-video cable. Luckily my VCR is also S-video capable, so I hooked it up via S-video instead of the yellow component RCA cable. This worked now.
Also I called because whenever I captured from my VCR, the file would be continuous. I wanted to split the movie and make chapters so one could skip ahead when they watched the DVD. It looked easy enough, and it felt like it worked. That is, until I put the DVD in my player. Whenever a new chapter was coming up, it would repeat the last two seconds from the previous chapter in the new chapter. So the DVD looked like it was skipping. Roxio tech did not know about this problem, and so they had no advice on how to fix this either.
The third was the DVD labeler. I bought a bunch of regular size DVD jewel cases, so that my DVDs would look great. Well, the DVD labeler was messed up as well. I would add a picture from file to the front and back covers and then some text to both covers as well. Sounds simple enough, but no this had it's glitches as well. Whatever picture I put on the front cover would automatically slide onto the back cover. All the text stayed in the same place. But now on the back cover I had text with two pictures, one overlapping the other. Roxio tech and I did not get to this point, because I was pretty fed up. I requested my money back, and they directed me to the right place. The only thing I have to do is fill out a form that basically has me sign an agreement to delete all of the download of Roxio 6. They said they would mail to me in the post. I asked if they could e-mail me the form to make this go quicker. They said they could and have. I'm going to mail it in today.
Now, I am interested in Roxio Videowave which says it has more features for DVD authoring and editing. Hey, if it doesn't work, I will return this too, I have 30 days. This return went smoothly, so I do not foresee and problems if there are problems.
I plan on reinstalling my ECDC5 as soon as possible, and yet I am still optimistic for Roxio. I pray that this Videowave works.
~~~~~For Further Reading on Roxio Disappointment from Scapp70~~~~~~~
Roxio Version 8
Recommended:
No
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scapp70
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Member: Michael Scapp
Location: NYC
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