Rating: 
Summary: Amazing!!!
Review: This is a fantastic product. The biggest advantage of it is tight integration of ALL media related tools. ECDC 7 reminded me of Microsoft Office (only for multimedia). This is brilliant idea: for example, when i authored my DVD (or VCD or SVCD) basic editing options are presented on the screen, but when i needed more sophisticated video editing - a full featured Video Wave editor was invoked UNDER DVD Builder just like Excel would launch with MS Word. It is easy and powerful.
Video editing has pretty much everything. Sound editor there (in Video Wave) allowed me to adjust sound volume in certain places and add background music in certain places. It has tons of Video editing functions including time-line. I produced a very cool clip by just giving Video clip and MP3 file and letting it (Video Wave) to do the rest: cuts and effects. (My wife didn't believe me that I had made this production).
Another great innovation is centralizing all media under media manager. I myself had my photos and videos all over the system, and i find Media Manager very useful.
Also Capture Utility is very cool. All my capture devices are centralized (including DVD ripping) and tightly integrated with the rest of the application.
By the way, the quality of produced DVDs is excellent. I watched it on 27 inch TV and it looks like a commercial disc.
Bottom, line for 80 bucks I got EVERYTHING for my multimedia needs. Like I said, I find it easy and powerful, and I'm happy that finally I found ONE great suite the fully satisfies me.
Rating:
Summary: I like the interaction
Review: I make lots of photo and video slideshows on DVD, and I have tried many different DVD software products, but I heard good things about Creator 7, so I decided to try it. I installed it with no problems, though it took a long time. My photos and videos are scattered all over my hard disk, and the Media Manager feature found them all and made it really easy to organize them into collections. I then selected some photos and videos, and there was a button that sent them right into a slideshow editor (they call it Storyboard). I then added some really cool transition effects and some music into the slideshow, which was very easy to do by just draggng them in. There is a preview window in the Storyboard, and my production looked great, but the music ended abruptly. But then, I noticed a button that automatically fit the slidshow to the duration of the music, or I could even set a fade out for the music at the end. After a few more minutes of experimenting, I found a way to add more music tracks and some more video effects. I then clicked another button, and my slideshow got sent to the DVD authoring app, which is called DVD Builder. I selected one of the built in menu templates (but I also found a way to use my own video as a menu background), and then I clicked the button for burning. While the disc was burning, I noticed a button to launch the label software, which I did - and I found the same artwork templates in the label creator that were in my DVD menu templates. So, after my DVD was finished burning, I labelled it, and when I popped it in my DVD player, it had the same menu theme as the label - a nice touch. It is really cool the way they designed it so everything interacts, and the way my multimedia files get passed between the different modules. It's easy to use, but it seems to have lots of depth - the more I dig in, the more features I find. But, most important, the video slideshow that I made looks and sounds really slick on my TV. I like this software a lot...
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointment at best...
Review: About all I can say about this product is buggy, buggy, buggy. That aside, I was also rather put off by the licensing agreement. I'm one of those weird people who actually read the EULA. The part that concerned me was the fact that the user can't sell any of the content -your own material- produced using this product without paying a (presumably huge) licensing fee to a third party. I'm not talking about the music, movies or whatever that you're burning to CD's or DVD's. I mean the software which converts, compresses or records the material into MPEG-2, MP3 and so on. Now, about the bugs... I have used Easy CD Creator 4, 5 and a limited version of 6 for years with few if any problems. I bought Easy Media Creator 7 to replace the basic version of 6 that came with my Plextor drive. Big mistake! It installed OK, but I went to open the program after the reboot and I got a message that my screen resolution was insufficient to run the application. I had to increase it from 800 x 600 to at least 1024 x 768. This made the text too small to read comfortably (I'm over 50) so I reset the display to large fonts. Another warning! Grrr... I'm NOT about to buy a new monitor just to use this program! Somewhere along the line, the quick start icons in my task bar got stacked vertically and the clock began displaying the day and date, which together made the task bar about 2 inches high. I couldn't change it back. I also noticed that I could no longer read any of the dozens of DirectCD (UDF) CD-RW disks that I have photos and other data stored on. I tried formatting a CD-RW with the new program. After watching the hourglass for several minutes without anything at all happening, I tried to abort the format. The computer froze. C'mon people, Windows XP just DOESN'T freeze! I don't have a junk computer, it happily runs old and new programs without a hitch. On the rare occasion a program does crash, it simply closes and everything else keeps going. Not this time! Reboot again. Uninstalled Easy Media Creator 7 and reinstalled. Same results. Got tired of looking at the huge task bar that I couldn't fix, so I used the Win XP System Restore feature to bring the system back to the way it was a few days ago. That effectively de-registered the Roxio app. Deleted the directories it was in. I considered reinstalling it again, but reconsidered and put everything back in the box. I almost never return things that I buy but this software had me so completely frustrated that I just gave up on it. Fortunately, I bought it at a warehouse club store and they took it back so I wasn't out the 70-some bucks. Unfortunately, I won't get back the time I wasted on the whole nightmare. Now, that's a good 5 or 6 hours of my life I'd like to have back! I've reinstalled ECDC 5 for music and data CD's and I'll look for something else to do DVD's.
Rating:
Summary: Recommended
Review: I decided to upgrade my ageing version of Easy CD Creator 5 last week, and picked up Easy Media Creator 7 on Saturday. My main interests are managing and archiving all the photos on my system and getting more into digital video and DVD - which I've found hard to understand in the past. I really like the application launcher that starts up when you first run Easy Media Creator, it immediately gave me a bunch of great options across Photo, Video, Music, Data and DVD. Having the type of tasks I'd want to complete right there rather than just a list of applications is very cool. The first thing I tried was video editing .. I have a Sony Digicam but I've just been collecting DV tapes and not attempting to edit them. I selected 'Capture Video' from the task list and Capture popped up showing my Sony DV camera in a list of possible things I could capture. I then used SmartScan - this is cool, rather than copy everything onto my hard drive it tells me what I've captured on my DV tape and let's me select what to capture. I did that and then left it for a few minutes to capture only the scenes I wanted. Kind of freaky hearing the DV camera fast forward, stop, play for a while, fast forward ... nice automation! When I came back tried out VideoWave, the video editing application in the suite. I've only ever tried using the editor that came with my camera, but it was so bad I gave up right away. I had been meaning to buy a full-on editor for a while, but I'm glad I waited. VideoWave is much more than I expected, it's a complete video editor with hundreds of effects and transitions. I spent ages just playing with all the effects before I got into serious editing. I did have to check with the manual a few times to understand Timeline, but I'm blown away. I would have spent the hundred bucks just to get this never mind this plus photo, data, music etc. Next I checked out DVD Builder. I don't know what Roxio are smoking but I like it. This is a fully fledged DVD authoring application with again dozens of themes to create your DVDs. It also had something called DVD on CD which I didn't understand, but the control this thing gived you to create amazing menu designs and buttons of any size. I dragged a couple of my movies onto the menu, changed the theme, typed some text and hit burn. It took about 30 minutes to burn a DVD, but it played back no problem in my Panasonic DVD player and it looked perfect! That's as far as I've got with Easy Media Creator to date, but I find very little to criticise and plenty to recommend. I don't think this suite is missing anything! My only suggestion to Roxio is to maybe put a more meaty getting started guide in there as this is a huge suite and I wasn't sure where to start. Overall though it's so easy to use I don't really need a manual all the time. I'll post another review once I've had more time to get into more of the other applications in here.
Rating:
Summary: Good Program, WORKS with XP, despite what you've read...
Review: With all the complaints about Roxio's Version 6 of this program, I was a bit shaky about whether to buy this. I had excellent results with versions 4 & 5, and felt like I wanted some DVD capability. Well, I would recommend you not listen to the reviewers foaming at the mouth about how their computers have melted into puddles of lead because of this program. It installed fine, Version 7 works fine, I have XP Home Ediion and have never had any problems making CDs or DVDs. It's a very complete program, streamlined, and easy to use. Negative reviews of this product make no sense to me as I have had nothing but positive results with it. You should buy it without worry.
Rating: 
Summary: EMC7 should not have been released with this many bugs!
Review: What this product promises is great, and the interface is wonderful, yet it seems as if Roxio was too impatient to get this product out of the door before properly taking it through the testing cycle. If the many many bugs were gone it would be a wonderful product! Biggest Annoyances: 1. Painfully Slow! - You would expect any video editing software to require a
lot of processor muscle, but even for the most mundane of
tasks even on the fastest of CPUs this program painfully
aches along with many hiccups. It's clear that although
this was a massive project for Roxio, there are many
programming inefficiencies which have caused all of these
bumps in the road. 2. Audio and Video Out of Sync!
- Come on! If you're going to spend the time and money to
purchase the software and make a video, at the very least
you could expect that your videos wouldn't end up looking
like a old foriegn film with the voices not even matching
up with the video! Everything in the preview looks great,
but just wait until you compile you final video for that
big disappointment. 3. Crashes on XP all the time. 4. Don't even expect to make labels beyond the CD itself! - Most other labels ( jewel cases etc ) get printed off of
the page on legal or letter paper (not label paper)
reguardless of the printer type. - The cut lines interfere with the actual label itself! 4. Tech support is almost non-existent. - Telephone support is pay per incident - $35 (US).
- Assitance over e-mail is only available after
their automated assitant can't help you.
- E-mail support is expected to take days for a response. - Sounds like they can't support or address all of
EMC7's problems.
Rating:
Summary: Nero Burning Rom is MUCH better
Review: Roxio Easy Media Creator 7, follows the legacy of all their products: bugy, bad customer support, very little support for 3rd party images etc, and virtually uncustomizable compared to Nero Burning Rom. The last time I used Easy Media creator 7 was to burn a CD in iTunes (relies on the Roxio ASPI driver, even in Windows XP)
Rating:
Summary: Read the Pro Reviews
Review: It sure seems some folks are intent on undermining the sale of some products, based on the divergent reviews you see here. Roxio EMC 7 comes very highly rated by both PC World and PC Mag, so I bought it to use with my Sony miniDV camcorder and NEC 8x burner. I have burned CDs and DVDs, and I must tell you, it works wonders for a novice like myself. If you want the pro stuff, go buy Adobe or Pinnacle (and pay 'till it hurts ;-). If you are just looking for an easy-to-use, well-integrated suite of tools to get your media onto discs you can use, this pack is terrific. I've experienced no bugs, crashes, etc. The tools are largely intuitive, and its kinda fun, too! Anyway, the discs play in both my Sony and Samsung DVD/CD players without a hitch, and the quality is amazing! Just remember, like most products < $100.00, this won't do EVERYTHING, but it does a lot, and probably anything the average Joe/Jane needs. Also, between the burner, media, software, PC, and electronics you use, there is a lot that can cause problems. This software is NOT one of them. I use a Dell with a 2.5Ghz P4 and 1GB of RAM. Any name-brand media should work fine (I'm partial to TDK ... inexpensive and good quality). I think you'll be very pleased with Roxio EMC 7. Now go on ... get outa here ... and have fun!
Rating:
Summary: Best Video/Photo Software
Review: I have never reviewed a product on Amazon before, but I think Media Creator 7 definitely deserves a good review.. PHOTOS - I created a few slideshows and burned into a vcd. It was easy just to drag and drop the photos you want, to create a slide show. I also added transitions between photos. The number of options to pick a transition is amazing. The one thing I missed from the Photo suite is the tagging option like in Adobe Photo Album. The tagging option is a simple way to categorize photos. I wish roxio will add this in their next version. EDITING VIDEOS - I did not capture any video yet using this software. I used an existing video. Splitting the video to different clips is easy to do. Also, I was able to add background narration to the video which is impressive. I have tried other software ( Pinnacle, Click To DVD ) which crashed on me usually while editing the video. This software never stalled or crashed on me yet. DVD BURNING - DVD burning was simple to use. Just add the video clips to the main Menu. Add a background theme. I burned the disks on both DVD+R and DVD-R. Then, I replayed those DVDs on TV. Looks fine to me. I am using a 2.8 Ghz Sony Computer. The installation was a breeze and the software is easy to use. Overall, this is a great value for the price.
Rating:
Summary: This product delivers the goods. Great features and value.
Review: I rarely write reviews, but my experience with this product requires that I take the time to tell you about it. It delivers all the features and performance I expected at a modest price. It handles all forms of digital media -- music, photos, and video. The interface is easy to use offering two ways to do things -- as Tasks or Applications. I'm able to quickly convert my digital camera photos and digital video into slide shows and edited videos complete with fun transitions. Then create CDs and DVDs. (System: Windows XP, Pentium 4, 2.2 GHz, 512MB) I highly recommend Easy Media Creator 7.
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