Rating: Summary: My 3 year experience Review: First of all, let me say that I was very surprised just how easy and professional Nero software handled my CD burning tasks.And Now, the plain truth,you know how it is! We all don't have 30 hours to read over the enclosed digital manual. Futhermore, with so many applications on my computer it will take me several years to really utilize the power of all my software suites. When I intially purchased my current computer: IBM 500 MHz P3, 256Mb,17HD windows 98. My Sony 4X cdwriter was bundled w/ Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4. I have been using Easy CD4 for about 3 years without ever making a so called "coaster". However, I have only made direct CD copys or created a Audio CD from scratch. Again, never having any sort of problems. But when I was told by a friend that I could also make "mixed mode CDs" (A.K.A. Extra CD,Extended CD and CD Plus)I said what?? What is a mixed mode CD. After diving into the Easy CD4 manual, sure enough there was the documentation and how to notes. After doing some reading and reviewing I finally said forget it. Too much toggling back and forth between the help file and the software. Later, while on the internet. I was reading a review about buring Video CD's and the like. I said WOW, I can do that with Easy CD4? Once again I dove into the manual but this time I couldn't find any documnetation with regards to burning Video CD's. Before I go on, some quick notes and review: Some basic stuff you can do today with a CD burner: Create 1. CD-ROM - a CD with computer data 2. Audio CD - a CD with Audio tracks such as WAV or MP3 files. *If burned using a CD-R, Music can be played on a computer,a consumer DVD player and almost all Consumer CD players. *If burned using a CD-RW, Music can be played on a computer, some DVD players and most likely won't play on your consumer CD player be it Home or Automotive. - - *Applies only to CD's containing Wav. audio files/tracks. 3. Mixed Mode CD - a CD with Audio Tracks followed by computer data, such as a video file or web page. This is very similiar to some current music cds that will have an artist's music and a short music video - refered to as Enhanced CD 4. VCD or SVCD - a CD containg video files. "Video Compact Disc" "Super Video Compact Disc" The latter will contain video files in the form of the MPEG2 format. ( Better Resolution then Super Video Tape but less than DVD ) In addition, a SVCD can contain a slide show of picture files such as a jpeg file that you create and organize in any order. 5. Hybrid CD - a CD that can be played on a Windows OS or a Mac OS platform. 7. Etc. Why?? You ask have I bothered to list all of these types of CD formats. Because, I think software engineers should design software and GUIs that enable the user to get the most out of their product. After all, we all shelled out the money. The last thing we want to do is have to pay again for an additional reference book, video tutorial or evening seminar. After 3 years of using Adaptec CD Burning software I was only using perhaps 80% of its potential worthiness. However, with Nero 5.5, new tasks with regards to CD burning was brought to my attention in less than 3 days while simply navigating through the software and wizard. Moreover, I was able to create all of the CD's listed above in less than 2 days. Many of which, Adaptic does not support. In short, Nero has a great little wizard that aids you through the CD burning process. then, when you become more of an audio engineer you can go it alone and utilze even more editing and authoring tools. This is just some of the stuff that made me smile within the Nero Burning software: 1. Recognizes both of my CD recorders and their properties. 2. I can now designate the pause time between audio tracks 2,3,4 5 etc. seconds between tracks. 3. You can burn CD text info onto your CD which many high end Home CD players recognize. 4. Several audio filters to manipulate your audio sound. 5. If you are a DJ and mix cd tracks so as to have no pause between tracks you can create a track list eventhough you have one long audio track. The track pointer can be put exactly where you want it. 6. You can fomart a CD-RW, then while working on your computer, if you want to write a file to a CD you simply Drag & Drop over your CD-RW drive and the file will be burned. Takes 2 seconds and you continue doing whatever. 7. Ever have this problem. You burned a audio cd. You listen to it and some tracks are either louder or softer in volume than others. With Nero you can make all tracks have the same volume Finally, this list can continue for at least 6 more points. Without question Nero has won me over. My hat goes off to the German Software Engineers who designed and created this CD Burning software. Thanks......Nero
Rating: Summary: 5++++ Stars! Works on Sony CD-R's and Windows XP Pro, too Review: Word of advice, if you have Windows XP, and you have Roxio's Easy CD creator 5, it won't work. Most new computers and cd burners come with Roxio, but I had more frisbees than usual with Roxio. And with the addition of Windows XP Professional, it just got worse even with the updates. Another thing, I have purchased a cd burner from Sony for my other computer with Windows 98, and it came with their own software, what a joke! I called tech support from Sony, and they basically told me to buy Sony CD-R's. So, what was I supposed to do? I looked for some cd burning software, and I found Nero. Got a 30 day trial, and it brought new life to both of my computer's CD writers. Now, I got the FULL VERSION of Nero 5.5, and it works GREAT! So, if you recently bought a computer with Windows XP with Roxio, BUY NERO IF YOU WANT TO BURN CD'S, NOT FRISBEES.
Rating: Summary: From skeptical to greatly satisfied! Review: Ok. I never buy from the internet. I don't trust it! I decided to give this seller and Amozon a try figured it would be worth the investment to determine if one could actually purchase a product from the web and get what you paid for. I waited less then expected for my software to arrive. When it did arive the package was new and orderly. In fact I was given a freebee, which I verry much appreciated! Everything felt right. Installed it with no real problems. Now you couldn't hold me back from buying from Amazon and especially this seller again. They will be my first choice to search before I go anywhere else! Nothing else to say but, Thank you!
Rating: Summary: Easy to use, versatile, usually reliable, some drawbacks... Review: I've been using Nero over the past two years for all of my MP3 CD recording needs, and overall I'm fairly happy with it. It's definitely easy to use, leveraging Explorer like drag-n-drop functionality. Reliability is very good, although I have had a couple of data integrity problems (e.g. two MP3 songs somehow got merged, one simply refused to play, and one CD had seek errors) with perhaps 3 CDs out of 50 made. I do advise not using your PC for anything while Nero is burning a CD. Creating AUDIO CDs: You can create standard audio formatted CDs with music from both audio CDs and MP3 files, which is very convenient. Other nice features are drag-n-drop ordering, control of delay time between songs track-by-track (down to 0 if you want music back-to-back), CD text entries (artist/album/song) if your CD burner supports it--this displays on your CD player if it can read the data, and song fading (especially useful if you want to shorten a song). Creating DATA CDs: This kind of CD burning is very basic, and Nero gives you most every feature you'll need. Renaming folders and filenames for what is burned on the CD is convenient (avoids having to change them on the hard disk). Also, the overburning feature seems to work--I tried it successfully on a few CDs where I needed just a few more megabytes. Disappointment: Nero won't let you affect the order of your files when burning data CDs (not even alphabetically). This is especially annoying when creating MP3 CDs, as you cannot control the order of your songs! I found no help in the documentation on how to overcome this. Hopefully a later release will correct this drawback. Overall, you can't really go wrong with this software. The documentation isn't very good, but, the easy controls and wizards usually overcome the need for it.
Rating: Summary: Nero may just be the most "user friendly" burning software Review: After using almost every different type of burning and decoding software on the market, taking the long way aroung each time, I ran into Nero. Nero is available as a demo on CNET's (...) for 30 days, and is just enough to change anyone's mind. With the aid of it's onboard decoder, all you have to do is click and drag your mp3 files to a seperate window, and they are automaticaly checked for errors, and converted to WAV format in half the time. Burning time also seems to be faster, regardless of the speed of your burner. You can also use the utility to print lables, titles, and even cd cover sheets. Amazon has a hit on it's hands, for the low price offered. It makes a great gift for anyone into internet music and entertainment. I give it a 5 star raiting because it is a time saver, and is relatively easy to get to know.
Rating: Summary: The best there is Review: Nero Burning goes from strength to strength, it really does. I first tried this product in frustration after the product my burner came with turned my burner into a coaster factory! Dozens of defective disks and no explanation why. The trial allowed me to check that my burner was compatible, for a start, and to see if the coaster-production dropped off. It was a yes on both counts so I purchased it. I have now been using this product for two years and I think it is the best there is. It has all the functions you need for creating special CD-R's (bootable CD's, for example, or DVD's if you have a DVD-R) as well as helpful wizards to hide the complexity for new users. I recently upgraded my burner to an external 40x Iomega firewire unit and both worked together perfectly, first time - unusual in my experience for hardware and software to be so harmonious without some tweaking! The range of burners this product supports is amazing and is clearly updated very regularly (my unit is very recent.) If you are struggling with the lite version of some product that came with your burner, this is the product for you. It's worth every penny.
Rating: Summary: Nero Burning Rom 5.5 Review: I recently got a HP 9700 Series CD Writer and it came with The Roxio / Adaptec software. I have had many problems with this software which caused windows to not run at all. After reading the reviews ofor Nero Burning Rom I finally decided to try the free download from ZDNet. This is the full version that only works for 1 month. I have been very impressed with this software. Many of the reviews I read hinted at the difficulty of using this program. However, I found that it is complicated but not that difficult. There are a few things that I wish to point out for other people lookig at this program. 1. It writes Both CDR and CDRW, I had a hard time finding this in the information on this site. As well as Music CD's, Bootable CD's and several other types eg. DVD 2. If you have trouble with Roxio / Adaptec software, Nero seems to work on those systems. While people having trouble with Nero seem to find Roxio more agreeable to their system. 3.Download the free demo from ZDnet first! I it doesn't work you aren't out much (Nero has a good uninstall program). 4. Many of Nero's features seem to be mostly fluff. If you have a program that works I would keep it. The label-maker is hard to use, the audio effects are pretty basic from and editing standpoint, but they do work. If you have burning software that works there are other programs that do these functions much better. I for one am glad I tried it.
Rating: Summary: It's not that complicated Review: I laugh every time I read a review of this software and it's mentioned that it's tough to navigate, especially compared to the more popular Roxio Easy CD Creator. I wonder how many of these folks have Roxio stock. Nero is WAY easier than Roxio's CD Creator. I've used Roxio 4 and 5. I've never found it easy to navigate, and I've burned countless coasters. If you are wondering if you might burn a useless coaster - try the Windows Media Player's CD burn option. (If you didn't get it with your version of Windows, download the update.) Both are based on the same base. If you've made a coaster on one, you'll do it with the other. At least I have. OTOH, Nero is incredibly easy. I don't know about its earlier incarnations. But it now has easy-to-use wizards, and is totally drag and drop. After you've decided what to write to disc, you can trim the mp3 if you want to rid a too-long fadeout or the dead air that happens far too often in creating mp3s. You can also blend songs. Three things Nero doesn't do - it won't write mp3s unless you pay more [money], it won't easily back up your hard drive, and it can't combine two songs into one (like the Kings "This Beat Goes On/Switchin' To Drive", which should never be separated). But you can write mp3s more easily with Music Match or several other programs, and back up your hard drive by creating several data CDs with a little intelligence. The song combining is useful for about 5 tunes (Sirius/Eye in the Sky is another). And despite the reviews, it's far more intuitive and doesn't require you to figure out which module of the program you need to use. This is what Roxio Easy CD Creator should be. Unlike Roxio, you don't have to have your turntable connected to your computer to edit out pops from LPs. You don't have navigate through your Start menu to figure out which program to open to do any process - what a concept. Best of all, you can download and try it out for a month. For absolutely free! Try it out. Then buy it. (The box has some stuff not in the downloaded version.) ...
Rating: Summary: Easy to use, excellent performance... Review: I must admit up front that I have never used Adaptec/Roxio's Easy CD Creator. Prior to using Nero, I used Prassi PrimoCD Plus, which shipped with my CD/RW drive, and had nothing but problems, freezes, and crashes. Since installing and using Nero (first 5.0.4.8, now 5.5.2.3) I have had no problems to date that were not caused by me. Coaster creation has been minimal, and usually do to me pushing to hard while burning. Nero burns every format, from Audio CD, VCD/SVCD, ISO, Mixed Mode, and handles multisession very well. I found the user interface to be friendly and intuitive. The only weakness I found were the extras, which aren't bad, but just aren't spectacular. The cover designer is somewhat difficult to learn and manipulate, but it is functional and does what it promises, once you get the hang of it. I'd have been happier with a few less in the way of extras and a few bucks of the price, but I'm still very satisfied overall. In short, if you are comfortable with another software package for your burning, and is isn't giving you headaches, I'd stick with it. If you don't have any package, or are having troble with another one, then I would certainly give Nero a try, especially if all you plan to do is burn, and don't care about the "fluff".
Rating: Summary: Not very good Review: I purchased this item because I expected a full featured burner, but what I got was a program that gives me a message stating that it will only work with the cd-rom unit it was bundled with. I bought this as a stand-alone program, but evidently this was meant to be given FREE with the purchase of a cd-rw unit. I didn't expect this to happen buying from Amazon.com, but now I know different and will confine my software purchases to one of the many local sellers.
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