Easy CD & DVD Creator 6

Roxio released this version before it was ready! The package is rich in advertised features, and supposedly XP compatable. My experience was less than good, to be polite. Roxio abandoned the reliable OEM v4 Easy CD Creator that came with my PIII Dell Dimension. When I upgraded the operating system from WinMe to WinXP Home, I invested $ (no upgrade breaks for current users) with Easy CD Creator v6. Well, I soon discovered that the software seems to have a known incompatability with the NEC CD-RW that comes with most Dells of the era (and many others?) After many crashes, calls to Dell and Roxio (more on that below) I checked into the discussion boards. The Roxio discussion boards are full of howling customers with serious problems. I urge potential buyers to check them out BEFORE YOU BUY. After pulling my hair out (what little is left of it) I called Roxio, which does not have a toll-free support line, and was placed on hold for over 2 hours before I had to abandon the call. The software now costs another $+ in toll charges. The poor moderator of the discussion boards admitted the fix was in the works, but no idea when it might come. Problems: The Photosuite function made my system crash. The CD copier made my system crash. The drag-to-disk was inoperable. The CD labeler prints a hideous ROXIO label in an overwhelmingly big font. I removed the program and got the final insult. All in all, a very expensive lesson. Only saving grace is there is now some rebates posted that will offset the loss. For what it is worth, this is my experience. Don

I got Easy CD & DVD Creator 6 bundled with a DVD+/-RW drive. Needless to say, I was eager to get burning. Ive used Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 for 1.5 years and have been very happy. But, thats neither here nor there. Ill cut to the chase. After installing, I found that all of my hard drives and partitions had been assigned new drive letters, seemingly at random. Furthermore, in Disk Management, most partitions didnt show a letter and those that did show a letter, appeared twice in Windows Explorer. Windows was notifying me that System Volume Information racking.log was corrupt and that I needed to run chkdsk. To make matters worse, Windows no longer identified my system boot drive with the (System) designation, meaning I could delete the partition if I wanted! Uninstalling did not resolve this, so I backed up all my data to an external disk. I then performed a fresh install of Windows XP. I then installed Service Pack 1 and all critical updates. I also installed DirectX 9.0b and Windows Media Player 9. After that, I installed Office XP, followed by Easy CD & DVD Creator 6. I rebooted, and found the exact same problem. Clearly there is some serious problem with this software. Im going back to version 5. For kicks, since I knew Id need to reinstall XP again, I tried to delete the system partition. It let me. A bug this serious shouldve been caught before beta testing.

The appeal of this product was the addition of DVD mastering to its broad stable of capabilities. I purchased a DVD burner in late 2001 and have had a hard time finding a reliable, flexible, reasonably-priced DVD authoring solution. Roxio has come up with the best low-end solution Ive seen. First of all, it has no issues with my DVD-R/RW. burner, which already puts it a cut above the 3 other products I tried (OEM stuff that was included with the burner). The interface for the layout software may be just a bit too simple, though: it provides for an intro video clip (which plays as soon as your DVD is inserted in the player) and what appears to be an endless cascade of menus and sub-menus. The program provides a couple dozen menu themes, but there doesnt appear to be any way to create use a custom theme, and the provided themes seem to be based around a familiar chapter-style interface--more traditional menu navigation (ie, Play Movie/Set-Up/Special Features) doesnt seem to be an option. Basically, the DVD-builder is created to get your video to DVD with a minimum of difficulty, and a lot of flexibility is sacrificed to that end. Fortunately, the program seems to be able to handle just about anything you throw at it where content is concerned: I mixed MPEG files with raw DV footage, including a variety of resolutions ranging from 160 x 120 to 752 x 480, and the program just workhorsed its way through the job at the click of a button. Not spectacular, but workable, and a great way to distribute your reels to prospective clients. Ive played a bit with the audio side of things, too, recording a few old LPs to CD, using the DeClick filter to remove pops, crackles, and ticks, and the program works very well for that. The DeClick filter isnt quite as effective as Id like, but it does take out a good bit of the surface noise. Once the LP is recorded, breaking it into CD tracks is a trivial activity that can generally be done without manual intervention. One thing thats inexcusable in the audio program, though, is the lack of an undo function (if its there, I cant find it). Also, it seems that once a track is marked, theres no simple way to unmark it. Its not hard to work around these small limitations, but they really shouldnt be there in the first place. One thing I dont like about the whole package is the all-or-nothing aspect of it: it wants to put itself everywhere on your machine...in the Start menu, in the clock tray, on the desktop...and it likes to be running in the background whenever you boot up. If you use the drag-to-disc feature, thats not a bad thing, but anything that creeps into so many corners of my system makes me a bit antsy, and the fact that the ROXIOP.exe program prevents my Win2K machine from shutting down without manual intervention doesnt give me warm fuzzies, either. Im hoping a patch is on the way. Overall, I like this program a lot after a week--its easy to use, doesnt seem to consume too many resources, and does what most people are buying it for. Could it be better? Sure. Can you get something better for the same price? Not from what Ive seen. Addenda: I discovered the drag-to-modify nature of the track markers which allows the user to easily move or delete existing tracks simply by tugging on their flags. I also discovered an unfortunate glitch where the track markers are concerned: it seems that sometimes a tiny, split-second piece of your track will inadvertently get attached to the track marker, resulting in a short burp of sound right before the actual track begins. This would be bad enough to be a show-stopper, except that its easily corrected: if you have a burping track marker, delete it and create a brand new track marker (with no associated burp) in exactly the same spot. This has cleared up the problem for me every time Ive tried it.

This is the first time I have ever written a review. If you have roxio version 5, stick with it, the patches from the site works fine. Dont ever buy Roxio 6. I dont even have to work for Roxio company to give it good ratings. Roxio needs to fix their bugs before making their real profits. Roxio version 6 crashed all my CD DVD drives leaving just my hard drive to work on. What a pain to re-install OS and everything that you need to get you going on your computer.

This software came with my new Dell Computer and it has been a very frustrating experience. Dell DOES NOT give or offer any support for this software and Roxio will not give or offer any support either (unless you purchase it direct from them, then, I dont know). I was held on hold with Roxio for 1 1/2 hrs and finally gave up. For some reason, although you can compress the VHS capture source down to fit on a DVD (MPEG-1, and four more options), it still says that the files are too large to transfer. I bought the top-of-the-line Dell to handle all the system requirements. There was no manual that came with the software and the help menu was not informative enough. I have had my computer 3 weeks and have been off work during this time and still cant get it to capture all the time, or compress properly when it does work. I even went as far as buying a new VCR and a variety of cables (including Monster cables) in hopes that this would remedy the problem, but to no avail. And now, the video portion has finally stopped working. A waste of good money.

Being an engineer, I can only believe that software engineers must run Roxio. The product is always being upgraded which means, where I work, fixed for a poor early release, and or the engineers want to keep playing with it. I should have known when I saw the 1 inch thick Manual that came with Creator Platinum, that I was in for a long difficult ride! If you have patience and a masters in I.T. you probably will enjoy being Roxios Beta site and using the product. If not you will be totally frustrated. I have gotten it to work fairly well, but always come to a dead end that cant be answered in the manual. Trying to get assistance is virtually impossible. You can e mail the tech folks, but be ready for days of unanswered questions, then back and forth for weeks, when all that was needed was a short phone call. Oh yes, you can get phone assistance but youll spend a lot ...more then the software costs. For my money its easier to use Nero. Oh yes, if you only have a dial up connection, youll spend many hours on line trying to download updates that might not solve anything. I expect that version 7 isnt much different. Good luck.

If you are fortunate enough to get one of the earlier releases of 6.0 you will be OK as long as you do not upgrade via the web once you register. Most of the copies out there now do include the newer engine. If you upgrade to 6.x via the web you can kiss DVD burning goodbye. They are planning a release of the newer engine that will fix the bug that they have stated could not be replicated in their labs. However, look at their own site forums and on the web. Its a wide spread issue. The fix is supposed to be out in late November. I would wait until it is out and tested first. It does burn DVDs but it further compresses the image to about 50% of what it should be. The end result is a 4.7 gig burn that renders to about 2 gigs. Its almost unrecognizable when you play it. Pixilation so bad that is resembles a mosaic pattern. Another problem is the software keeps attempting to finalize CD-R disks. After the initial finalization using the drag and drop icons it will finalize the CD-R again. Throw that one away too. Finally, I burned a 1-hour DVD. It took 27 hours to render with the new engine on a 2.6 GHz with 1 gig of RAM and a 110 Gig swap drive. Your call on buying this! One thing I liked... The nice box it came in...

Ive been using Easy CD Creator since version 2 that came bundled with my first burner, and they (Roxio) shouldve left well enough alone a long time ago. In version 6 they basically removed all the tools that I used in the package, except for what theyve chosen to now call Creator Classic. I never was able to figure out how to create a VCD (DVD Creators help crashed every time I tried to look up VCD). Basically all the functions in version 6 are no better than what may have come bundled with your burner drive. Save your money.

Nobody else in that market has a comprehensive set of tools like Creator 6. Nero doesnt come close. The new Disc Copier will copy games that nobody else can touch, and burning audio CDs is much faster than older versions. I like how the new project selector ties all the programs together and how it can be minimized on screen so you always have access to your burning apps. Great job Roxio.

In May I purchased a MiniDV Camcorder and wanted to make DVDs of my home movies. I purchase Easy CD & DVD Creator because it seemed to have all the features I wanted, and none of the features I didnt want. I wanted a simple video capturing utility, a simple video editing tool, and the ability to create menus on my DVDs. I am able to easily download my video from my camera (via Firewire), edit my scenes, and create a Themed Menu very easily. I recently came back from a family vacation and had over two hours of video and nearly 200 digital pictures. I used Easy CD & DVD to create a DVD that not only included my edited video, but a slide show of my pictures set to music. The quality was excellent, and I am very happy with the results.