Easy CD & DVD Creator 6

I have many other software products that let me work with music creation and collection, so the main reason I bought Easy CD & DVD Creator was for its DVD tools. I have many VHS tapes which are family movie compilations, some dating back to Super 8 days. I was very eager to put these all on DVD for my family. The series of problems I had with this process was simply amazing. The software didnt have fast forward or rewind buttons. Importing often failed even though the movie or sound files were perfectly usable by every other software package on my system. The software crashed numerous times. I tried to move the project onto another system to see if it would be any better, and the move process required me to start again from scratch. I finally got my DVD put together the way I wanted it and started to write. It crashed. I tried to simply write an image to disk. It crashed. The Roxio message boards are full of complaints from people with the same problem. I sent an email to their tech support. No answer. If you call in you pay for a toll call - plus pay $35 on top of that in order for them to help you figure out why their software is crashing. This software should never have been released in the buggy state it is in. It is incredible how much money I have spent for software that has wasted days of my time and simply does not work.

I am a systems analyst with 20 years of experience, I would never have released a product as full of bugs as this one. The concept is fantastic! However, the product will not preform as advertised. When trying to put together a 15 minute slide presentation with audio sound you will experience not being able to adjust the sound to the photos in a cohesive manner. The music (sound) will always be too long or two short. While working on the project you will experience the screen going blank while the music continues to play, this makes it 100% labor intensive to try to finish a project because you will spend all of your time starting over. When using random transitions you will never know how long each one will take. The majority of the time the transition is 2 seconds, however sometimes it is longer. Once-in-a-while the random transitions will disappear half way through the project. Forget about technical support. I have made several phone calls and when trying what the technician suggests I find that it doesnt work. For example, they suggested using the remote control(part of the program) to view the project. They indicated that I would be able to fast forward and that the photos and music would stay together making it easier to hear and see what song was playing with what picture without going through the entire slide show again. I will never know because there isnt any way to stop the fast forward action. Once you start the fast forward it goes all the way to the end. Oh, by the way, did I mention that Roxio wants to charge you [money amount] for a technical service call. Its pretty bad when you pay [money amount]for a product that barely works and then have to pay to find out that the technical support isnt helpful. When I asked the technical service person (Liz - in Toronto)if any of the things she was telling me were in the user manual she replied I dont know, Ive never read it. Other little annoyances like the up and down slide on the side tab freezes and you can only move up, which prevents you from seeing anything at the end of your project. Eventually it comes back but in the meanwhile its a pain. Several people really liked the one short dvd I was able to create and wanted to know about the product. When I told them it took me a week to make a 15 minute dvd they quickly changed their mind and told me to let them know when the prodcut is perfected. Too bad for Roxio - they had a good idea that could have sold very well.

Roxio 6 platnium picks up where 5 left off by expanding the capabilities of the core program itself. The burning aspect leaves little to be desired for DVDs, CDs are burnt with precision and if installed correctly causes little problems (XP sp1). Overall, it does exactly what its supposed to and nothing else.

Crashed a lot and isnt compatible with newer hardware or operating systems. I ended up buying Nero and giving this away.

This is up there with the legendary WinFax V9 as one of the worst software products ever made. The main problem: this horrible product corrupts at the drop of a hat. You will find yourself uninstalling and re-installing this software - a long and tedious process - every single time you want to burn one CD. RUN as fast as can from this product. Id rather hand transcribe data - and go back to making music cassettes - than use this irritating mess.

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

If you own Easy Creator 5, I cant think of any good reason to purchase this product. The only thing it does well is burn data and files to CDs, and EC-5 does that equally well. The Photosuite section is one of the most exasperating pieces of software Ive ever tried to use - and it deletes EC-5s ability to archive pictures along with a self-running exe player that provides both shortage and self-running slide show capabilities (with music) on one CD. If you need a photo album and picture editor program, first look at what came with your digital camera, possibly augmented by one of the cheaper Adobe editing products, or purchase Jasc After Shot or its latest incarnation. If you need DVD/Video capture or editing software, buy Sonics MYDVD Video Suite - Its significantly simpler and more flexible to use, and produces DVDs with better playing characteristics. The Audio capture/playing/editing features seem only different, not better than EC-5, and maybe not as good. The Drag-to Disk feature is back - but Ive never found that feature to be worth the effort to use it, with any CD/DVD burning program. And lastly, the basic operation of the program seems even more quirky than EC-5, and counter-intuitive to every other piece of software you likely own. Bottom line, I installed it, tried it, deleted it, and reinstalled the elements of EC-5 I use. Was a total waste of $...

I had the Platinum 5 version which I upgraded. Using Windows ME, this worked fairly well. I then upgraded to a Dell 4550, which came with a Basic 5 Version, and Windows XP, that worked but wouldnt make MP3 CDs. So I decided to upgrade to Version 6. The result was disaster, the program worked for 24 hours, then crashed, repeated error messages, would not work at all. I called Dell, they tried very hard but could not correct the problem. In the end I had to reformat the hard drive, at Dells recommendation. I then re-enstalled Version 6, the same problem, I then called Roxio. Their tech and I spent 3 hours on the phone trying to cure this problem, no luck. I then erased the program, and returned it. I purchased Nero 5.5 which works fine. If your are reading this, dont believe the guys who say it works fine, IT DOES NOT, be very careful, my re-format took 8 hours, including new down loads. The people at Dell and Roxio did not know what caused the problem. My own guess is that some where there are severe incompatabilities between ECDC and XP. In truth I cannot recomend a product which seems so variable. Good Luck

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.

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.