Rating: Summary: Might be ok if it would work Review: After installing the program on my pc running windows xp professional, start up screen would appear but none of the options would run. Trying to contact techical support was a joke. The supplied technical support id number was not recognized by their database so I'm stuck with no working program and no working support. If I could, I'd give it a minus 1 star rating.
Rating: Summary: DVD Creation Review: If you plan on using this to create your own DVD's, be aware there are limitations. Menu titles are truncated, MPG encoding is minimal. I was a Roxio fan until I purchased this version. The free software that came with my DVD burner works better.
Rating: Summary: Caveat Emptor - Junk Review: I have never been compelled to write a review at Amazon.com, but Easy CD&DVD Creator by Roxio leads me to do it. I bought this software based upon generally positive reviews here and elsewhere, thinking that the Roxio folks had it together. Following my experience I went back and read those reviews again. Old reviews were positive, but newer reviews were far less so. Somewhere along the way, something has changed for the Roxio gang. The only useful element in the bundle is the classic CD Creator - this is a gem, and works great on my machine. The DVD editing and authoring software is, however, a disaster. The digital photo software as well as the rest of the bundle is weak and you can better for less elsewhere. Problems with the video editing and DVD authoring segments are instability (an understatement), leading to crashes and loss of work. In addition to crashes, the video editing software uses a pointer file that is prone to corruption, which leads to loss of your project (after hours of work). Secondly, they recently released an update with a new DVD engine that produces useless DVDs - if you ever get one. Everything is highly compressed, which results in a highly pixelated and jerky image during playback. Documentation is okay, which is good because the software is far from intuitive. I tired desperately to resolve my problems via Roxio's technical service. For tech service you have three options (1.) use their web-served information and figure it out yourself, (2.) converse with tech service by email, or (3.) pay to talk to someone (and it's not cheap). I tried one and two. At first I learned that many others were having my same problems (check out their forums) and nobody had received any help or response from Roxio. Not only did I not find help, I did find a growing group of very dissatisfied users or would have been users. So I tried the email approach. I was seriously disappointed at the responses I received after three rounds - each response took seven days. They first suggested removing then re-installing the software. After this failed, the second acknowledged that there was a problem with the new engine and stated "perhaps a future update will resolve the problem", but offered no help or encouragement. By the way - email support is limited to ninety days from the first time you contact them, provided that it's all within one year of your registered purchase date. After that you can figure it out on your own or pay. I only gave this product one star because I couldn't give it zero stars. It's an expensive way to get good CD authoring software. If you want digital photo editing software, look elsewhere - there are better products for less money. If you want video editing and DVD authoring software then forget it, unless you are a masochist. If you do buy this package, and get it to run as it should, then never accept an update afterwards. And if you expect to be able to get help from responsive, competent technical service, definitely look elsewhere because these folks don't provide it (unless maybe you have a credit card waiting - for a new product).
Rating: Summary: Nice features but.... Review: Nice features and intuitive interface but installation could be problematic. Advanced users may need to reboot to previously known good config. on initial install (it corruped my video drivers requiring reinstall NVIDIA 5600 chip set). It was worth the trouble and Tech support has been notified so I hope some fixes are in the works!
Rating: Summary: For Beginners Review: I Love the product. I have had it for almost a year now, and it has worked fine all this time. I would however recommend this for beginners or someone that wants something that will be easy to learn.
Rating: Summary: Roxio Sort of Gets It, But Has A Long Way To Go!!! Review: I have been using every version of CD Creator since long before Roxio bought out or evolved from Adaptec. Every version has problems. Creator 6 would have problems even if they called it the "Diamond Version." 1. Slide Show is a joke. First attempt at DVD burning. The advertising is misleading saying you can burn Slide Show DVDs. I don't think so. When I tried to load just 330 digital photos for a burn, a message came up telling me I could only use 99 photos on a DVD. That is simply laughable. I recommend you immediately download ULead DVD Picture Show 2 if you want to put a gillion shots on a DVD, add music, and watch it on your television. 2. Sound editor is a joke. I tried to edit a couple of mp3s, so I could add them to the Slide Show. The advertising says, "Powerful editor." The fact is it has only basic features. If you want to cut out the intro or the tail end of a song, there isn't even a fade in or fade out edit option. I recommed you immediately download Voyetra's Audio Surgeon like I did. It worked first time an was extremely easy to use. 3. I have never had a version of CD Creator that didn't crash my system. It's pretty hard to crash Windows XP, but Roxio manages nearly every time. I used to think it was my old computer, but I just upgraded to a super fast Dell. It still crashes routinely. 4. One good thing to say. It does a pretty good job of buring music CDs and making copies of important disks. In this mode, it makes Windows Media player look very bad. This product needs some work. It also needs humans answering the phone.
Rating: Summary: One of My Worst Experiences Ever! Review: Without a doubt one of the worst products I've ever bought and one of the worst companies I've ever dealt with! First, I created a playlist, burned it to CDR and everything seemed fine. However, when I opened that playlist the next day the songs were not in the order I had placed them in, some were missing, and there were two nameless tracks added (with no information in them). Second, when I tried to edit tracks using Sound Editor I got repeated failure messages saying "Unable to Open the File for editing." It would not even PLAY most tracks and I got a message saying "In Use Elsewhere." The Sound Editor also repeatedly froze up during editing sessions, which were then entirely lost! Hours of work wasted! In fact, the software locks up often regardless of what feature you are trying to use. I contacted their so-called "technical support" (Ha!) by phone and email, but still haven't heard from them. I didn't pay for this. If I can't return it for a refund it's going in the trash - where it will be right at home! P.S.: I would not even give this turkey one star, but Amazon does not offer the option of giving less than one star!
Rating: Summary: I shouldn't have done it! Review: Since I bought a DVD burner, I thought it would be a good idea to upgrade to Roxio's ver. 6 from ver. 5. - BIG mistake! They took away most of the functionality of v5 and called it an upgrade. I have uninstalled this "upgrade" and went back to v5. I recommend you buy ANYTHING ELSE rather than waste $ on this. Their tech support was basically useless to try to answer any of my questions - they weren't even aware of the features in v5. Go with any DVD burning product from uLead and check out what you can do with DVD Xcopy. If you can get your hands on Roxio's v5, it's great for audio but stay away from v6.
Rating: Summary: Great if it works, a disaster otherwise Review: Roxio Easy CD & DVD Creator is notorious for corrupting Windows operating systems (boh XP and Windows 2000) under particular circumstances involving certain driver/hardware installations, including those involving some involving USB and zip drives. Many complaints appear on web sites. While the software has a good reputation if these problems are not encountered, the downside of a corrupted operating system is severe. "Blue screen" interruptions of the computer, such as "Inaccessible boot device" may occur. Hard disk reformatting and reinstallation of the operating system, other application programs and data may be required. Roxio does not readily support its basic software that comes with with DVD read/write drives, instead referring the caller to the manufacturer, or requiring a $35 technical support fee or an upgrade as a condition of technical support. This is high risk software with barriers to technical support and the user should be prepared to accept potential data losses and inconveniences associated with those risks.
Rating: Summary: Known Engine Bug prevents DVD recording Review: 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. It's 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. It's 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...
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